Module – Project Management

MMN 221207 [Masters]

Theme: Role of the PM

MG REF – MMN 221207

Outline of Presentation

 The Project Manager

 Project Manager Responsibilities
 Special Demands on the Project
Manager
 Attributes of Effective Project
Managers
 Managing Project Stakeholders
 Characteristics and Qualities of
Effective Project Managers
 Competence Framework
 Communication in projects
 Leadership in Projects
The Project Manager
Soft skills

Soft Project Management

=
People Focussed (Qualitative)

 Conflict Management
 Team building
 Leadership
Hard skills

Hard Project/ Construction Management

=
The procedures and systems (Quantitative)

 Risk Management
 Planning
 Resource Management
 Value Management
 Cost Control/ Cash flow
Attributes of Effective
Project Managers

Credibility:

 Technical credibility – understanding of the base

technologies on which the project rests, must be able
to explain project technology to senior management,
and must be able to interpret the technical needs and
wants of the client to the project team.

 Administrative credibility – PMs should be able to

facilitate the activities of the team, manage the plan,
and communicate with the stakeholders.
…Continued

Sensitivity
 Successful PMs are not conflict avoiders. They sense conflict early,
then confront and deal with it before the conflict escalates

Leadership, Ethics, and Management Style

 Leadership is hard to define, but the PM should possess the traits of
a leader to be successful. The PM’s leadership must be invested with
a strong set of ethics to guide his or her decisions through the jungle
of conflicts and personalities

Ability to Handle Stress

 The organization can reduce the PM’s stress by providing a
consistent foundation of project management processes to guide his
or her efforts
Qualities of an Effective
Project Manager

1. Systems thinker
2. Personal integrity
3. Proactive
4. High emotional
intelligence (EQ).
5. General business
perspective
6. Effective time
management
7. Skillful politician
8. Optimist
Project Manager contradictions

 Innovate and maintain stability.

 See the big picture while getting your

hands dirty.

 Encourage individuals but stress the team.

 Hands-off/Hands-on.

 Flexible but firm.

 Team versus organisational loyalties.

The Best Managers Currently Come
from Which Discipline?

 Architects ?
 QS or other surveyors ?
 Construction Managers ?
 Project Managers?
 Contractors ?
 Facilities Managers?
Three Major Questions facing Project Managers

 What needs to be done?

 When must it be done?
 How are the resources required to do the job to
be obtained?
Project Manager Responsibilities
• The parent company
• The project and the client
• The project team
This is the responsibility to
make good use of the
organisation’s resources. It
includes keeping the
parent organisation well
informed on the status of
the project.
• Proper usage of
resources
• Timely and accurate
reports
This is the responsibility to ensure that the project
meets the customer’s needs, in spite of all the
conflicting demands that the PM must deal with.
• Preserve the integrity of the project
• This may be difficult with all sides wanting
changes
• Keep the client informed of major changes
• Keep project sponsor informed
This is the responsibility to manage the project team
well. This includes good communication and helping
project team members transition out of the project
when it is completed
• Very few people will work for the project
manager
• The “team” will disband at the end of the project
Special Demands on the Project Manager

 Acquiring adequate resources

 Acquiring and motivating
personnel
 Dealing with obstacles
 Making project goal trade-offs
 Maintaining a balanced
outlook
 Breadth of communication
 Negotiation
Acquiring Adequate Resources

Project budgets are typically cut as they work up the

management chain. This may be for legitimate business
reasons or simply under the belief that the original
estimate was padded. As a result, the PM usually starts
with a budget that is smaller than requested.

– Project budgets are usually inadequate

– Resource trade-offs must be considered

– Crises occur that require special resources

– Availability of resources is seen as a “win-lose”

proposition.
Acquiring and Motivating Personnel
Project team members are typically
borrowed from functional
departments. The functional
manager does not want to loan his
or her best people, who are probably
overbooked already. The loyalties of
the people who are loaned to the
project are complicated by the fact
that the functional manager often
controls pay and promotion issues.
The project manager negotiates for
the desired worker but;
– The project manager wants
the best qualified individual
– The functional manager
decides who to assign
 The functional manager also
decides:
 The skill level to assign
 The pay and promotion of
the worker
 Worker will most likely return
to the functional manager once
the project is finished
 Once workers are assigned to a
project, the project manager
must motivate them
 The project manager has
little or no control over pay
and promotion
Characteristics of Effective Team
Members
 High-quality technical skills - This is the most commonly sought after
characteristic. The team member should be an expert in his/her field to
handle most of the technical problems encountered by the project.
 Political, and general, sensitivity - Team members need to be sensitive to
organizational politics and similar matters outside their realm of normal
interaction.
 Strong problem orientation - Problem-oriented rather than discipline-
oriented members contribute more to the success of the project. They are
more willing to learn and adopt helpful problem solving techniques. They
look beyond their own discipline for solutions.
 Strong goal orientation - Work flow is rarely even, and for professionals a
60-hour week is common, as are periods when there seems to be little to
do.
 High self-esteem – Should have sufficiently high levels of self-esteem that
they are not threatened by admitting their own errors, or by pointing out
possible problems caused by the work of others.
Dealing with Obstacles

At the start of the project, problems tend to be

associated with resource issues. As the project
nears completion, obstacles tend to be
clustered around two issues: first, last-minute
schedule and technical changes, and second, a
series of problems that have as their source the
uncertainty surrounding what happens to
members of the project team when the project
is completed.

 Every project is unique

 The project manager should be ready to

face a series of crises

 A big problem is “scope creep”

Making Project Goal Trade-Offs
 The PM must make trade-offs between the
project goals of cost, time, scope, and ancillary
goals.

 During the project formation phase, there is no

significant difference in the importance project
managers place on the three goals.

 Schedule is the dominant goal during the

buildup stage.

 Near the end of the project it may be

necessary to insist that various team members
work on aspects of the project for which they
are not well trained or which they do not enjoy
to complete the project.
Maintaining a Balanced Outlook

Every project deals with phases of technical problems or snags. These snags
and its solutions can cause the project staff to have mood swings in relation to
the project success and failure. This directly affects the performance of the
team members:

 Outlook can change over the life of a project

 Technical problems cause waves of pessimism and optimism

 Mood swings can hurt performance

 Maintaining a positive outlook is a delicate job

Negotiations
The PM must be an excellent negotiator to
navigate through many problems and conflicts
that arise during the course of the project

 Acquiring adequate resources

 Motivating personnel

 Dealing with obstacles

 Making project goal trade-offs

 Handing failure

 Maintaining communication
The role of the project manager: all
things to all people? (Sommerville et
al., 2010)
Abstract
Purpose – Writers over the years have sought to define
the nature and roles of a project manager. The attempts
at these definitions have been based on rather historic
writings of what a manager should do. This paper seeks to
provide an up-to-date understanding of the current roles
of a construction project manager.

• Design/methodology/approach – A literature review is

used to develop a time role analysis matrix which is
completed by 24 project management staff working
for a multi-national contractor located in west-central
Scotland.
Traditional Roles of the PM
 Please rank the following in terms of it’s importance to the role of a PM:
 Co-ordinating, communicating, controlling, forecasting, motivation,
organising, planning.
 1 is most important and 7 is least important
Overall responses
Roles Shift with Age
Managing Project Stakeholders

Project Management Maxims:

 You can’t do it all and get it all done - projects usually

involve a vast web of relationships.
 Hands-on work is not the same as leading - more pressure
and more involvement can reduce your effectiveness as a
leader.
 What’s important to you likely isn’t as important
to someone else - Different groups have different stakes
(responsibilities, agendas, and priorities) in the outcome
of a project.
 Remember: project management is tough, exciting, and
rewarding — endeavor to persevere.
Management by Wandering Around

 Management by Wandering Around (MBWA):

– Involves managers spending the majority of their

time in face-to-face interactions with employees
building cooperative relationships

 Characteristics of Effective Project Managers:

– Initiate contact with key players

– Anticipate potential problems
– Provide encouragement
– Reinforce the objectives and vision of the project
– Intervene to resolve conflicts and prevent
stalemates
Ethics and Project Management
Ethical Dilemmas:
 Situations where it is difficult to determine
whether conduct is right or wrong:
 Padding of cost and time estimations.
 Exaggerating pay-offs of project proposals.
 Falsely assuring customers that everything is
on track.
 Being pressured to alter status reports.
 Falsifying cost accounts.
 Compromising safety standards to accelerate
progress
 Approving shoddy work.

Code of conduct
 Professional standards and personal integrity
 APM Competence Framework
1. Ethics, compliance and
professionalism
2. Team management
3. Conflict management
4. Leadership
5. Procurement
6. Contract management
7. Requirements management
8. Solutions development
9. Schedule management
10. Resource management
11. Budgeting and cost control
12. Risk, opportunity and issue
management
13. Quality management
14. Consolidated planning
15. Transition management
16. Financial management
17. Resource capacity planning
18. Governance arrangements
19. Stakeholder and comm’ management
20. Frameworks and methodologies
21. Reviews
22. Change control
23. Independent assurance
24. Business case
25. Asset allocation
26. Capability development
27. Benefits management
APM Rating scale
Role Profile – PM (Entry)
Role Profile – PM (Master)
Task 1: Churchill as a Project Manager -
refer to the enhancement materials in GCU Learn.

 Q1: How did Churchill’s

background qualify him as a
project manager?

 Q2: What are the desired traits

and skills for a project
manager?

 Q3: How important is previous

experience for a project
manager?
Breadth of Communication

The PM must be the project’s chief communicator. This requires constant

selling and reselling of the project. There are some fundamental issues to be
understood by the PM:
– Why projects exist - This knowledge helps in clarifying the tradeoff
effort that will inevitably take place.
– Some projects fail - Any experienced PM would have managed
projects that failed and learn from them.
– Support of the top management is needed - When a project faces
hurdles, which it will, top management support will allow the team to
keep plugging away.
– A strong information network is needed - The PM should build and
maintain this. It is critical to know what is happening both inside and
outside the project.
– Must be flexible - The PM must be flexible in as many ways,
with as many people, and about as many activities as
possible throughout the entire life of the project.
Communication

“I know you think you

understand what I said, but I
know you don’t understand”

Guy Goma, a graduate , appeared on the news channel

in place of an IT expert after a mix-up.
 But Mr Goma, was really at the BBC for a job
interview.
 Mr Goma said his appearance was "very stressful"
and wondered why the questions were not related
to the data support cleanser job he applied for
 The mix-up occurred when a producer went to
collect the expert from the wrong reception in BBC
Television Centre in West London.
 “The effective transmission of information so
APM’s BoK Definition that the recipient understands clearly what
the sender intends”.
Directional Communication

Upward Communication
to more senior
management

Lateral
Lateral Communication to
communication to Project Manager friends, social group
peers, functional and colleagues and
groups and organisation informal
customers and formal
Downward
Communication -
subordinates and project
office personnel
Leadership in Projects
“ A relationship through which one person influences the behaviour or actions
of other people”

“Getting others to follow”

“Getting people to do things willingly”

“The use of authority in decision making”

 The nature of leadership in projects

 Characteristics/traits of effective leadership in projects
 The Project Manager as a Leader
 Leadership, responsibility, authority and accountability
 Leadership theories and styles
 Leadership attributes
Task 2: Channel Tunnel - refer to the enhancement
materials in GCU Learn.

 Q1: What was the role of the

PM in implementing the
Channel Tunnel project?

 Q2: What complexity was

involved in planning and
implementing the project?

 Q3: Could the overruns in cost

and schedule have been
avoided? If so, how?

 Q4: Identify the sub-projects

within this project, if any.