1. Project Management: A Managerial Approach
Chapter 3 – The Project Manager

2. Overview PMs and Organizational Alignment Key PM Responsibilities
Career Management
PM “Realities”
PM Selection
PM Considerations

3. Project Management and the Project Manager
The Functional Manager vs. The Project Manager
Functional managers are usually specialists, analytically oriented and they know the details of each operation for which they are responsible
Project managers must be generalists that can oversee many functional areas and have the ability to put the pieces of a task together to form a coherent whole

4. Functional Manager and the PM
The Functional Manager
Analytical Approach
Direct, technical supervisor
The Project Manager
Systems Approach
Facilitator and generalist

5. Organizations and Functional Manager
The Functional Manager

6. Project Management and the PM

7. Project Management and the PM
Major questions face the PM:
1. What needs to be done?
2. When must it be done?
3. How are the resources required to do this job going to be obtained?
PM is responsible for organizing, staffing, budgeting, directing, planning, and controlling the project.

8. Responsibilities of a PM
Responsibility to the Parent Organization
Responsibility to the Client
Responsibility to the Team Members
Above all, the PM must never allow senior management to be surprised—be prepared to give “bad news”

9. Responsibilities to the Parent Organization
Conservation of resources
Timely and accurate project communications
Careful, competent management of the project
Protect the firm from high risk
Accurate reporting of project status with regard to budget and schedule

10. Responsibilities of the PM
Responsibility to the Client
Preserve integrity of project and client
Resolve conflict among interested parties
Ensure performance, budgets, and deadlines are met
Responsibility to project team members
Fairness, consistency, respect, honesty
Concern for members’ future after project

11. Project Management Career Paths
Most Project Managers get their training in one or more of three ways:
On-the-job
Project management seminars and workshops
Active participation in the programs of the local chapters of the Project Management Institute
Formal education in degree/certificate programs

12. Project Management Experience
Experience as a PM serves to teach the importance of:
An organized plan for reaching an objective
Negotiation with one’s co-workers
Follow through
Sensitivity to the political realities of organizational life
Careers often starts with participation in small into larger projects, until given control over small, then larger projects

13. Special Demands on the PM
A number of demands are critical to the management of projects:
Acquiring sufficient resources
Acquiring and inspiring personnel
Finding sources of internal motivation
Dealing with obstacles
Making project goal trade offs
Dealing with risk and failure (perceived or otherwise)
Maintaining multiple channels of communication
Negotiation

14. Acquiring Sufficient Resources
Resources initially budgeted for projects are frequently inadequate
Sometimes resource trade-offs are required
Subcontracting is an option
Project and functional managers perceive availability of resources to be strictly limited
Competition for resources CAN turn into “win-lose” propositions between project and functional managers

15. Acquiring and Inspiring Personnel
A major problem for the PM is that most people required for a project must be “borrowed”
At times, functional managers may become jealous if they perceive a project as more glamorous than their own functional area
Typically, the functional manager retains control of personnel evaluation, salary, and promotion for those people lent out to projects
Because the functional manager controls pay and promotion, the PM cannot promise much beyond the challenge of the work itself
Violation of “Unity of Command” principle

16. Attracting the “Best” Team
Characteristics of effective team members:
High quality technical skills
Political sensitivity
Strong problem orientation
Strong goal orientation
High self-esteem

17. Dealing with Obstacles
One characteristic of any project is its uniqueness and with that come a series of crises:
At the inception of a project, the “fires” tend to be associated with resources
As a project nears completion, obstacles tend to be clustered around two key issues:
Last minute schedule and technical changes
Uncertainty surrounding what happens to members
of the project team when the project is completed

18. Making Project Goal Trade-offs
The PM must make trade offs between the project goals of cost, time and performance
During the design or formation stage of the project life cycle, there is no significant difference in the importance PM’s place on the three goals
Schedule is the primary goal during the build up stage, being more important than performance, which is in turn significantly more important than cost
During the final stage, phaseout, performance is significantly more important than cost

19. Making Project Goal Trade-offs
Relative importance of project objectives for each stage of the project life cycle:

20. Failure, the Risk of Fear, and Failure
It is difficult, at times, to distinguish between project failure, partial failure, and success.
What appears to be a failure at one point in the life of a project may look like a success at another
Perception is reality—PMs need to control perceptions
Communication is key to minimize impact of most “failures”
Accountability never transfers from PM

21. Failure and Project Types - 1
Two general types of projects:
Type 1 - these projects are generally well-understood, routine construction projects
Appear simple at the beginning of the project
Rarely fail because they are late or over budget, though commonly are both
They fail because they are not organized to handle unexpected crises and deviations from the plan
These projects often lack the appropriate technical expertise to handle such crises

22. Failure and Project Types - 2
Type 2 - these are not well understood, and there may be considerable uncertainty about specifically what must be done
Many difficulties early in the life of the project
Often considered planning problems
Most of these problems result from a failure to define the mission carefully
Often fail to get the client’s acceptance on the project mission

23. Multiple Communication Paths
Most of the project manager’s time is spent communicating with the many groups interested in the project
Considerable time must be spent selling, reselling, and explaining the project
Interested parties include:
Top management
Functional departments
Clients
Members of the project team

24. Communication Realities
To effectively deal with the demands, a PM must understand and deal with certain fundamental issues:
Must understand why the project exists
Critical to have the support of top management
Build and maintain a solid information network
Must be flexible in many ways, with as many people, and about as many activities as possible throughout the life of the project

25. Selecting the Project Manager
Some key attributes, skills, and qualities that have been sought in PM are:
Strong technical background
Assertive and successful functional manager
Mature and calm
Someone who is currently available
Someone on good terms with senior executives
Knows how to keep a team focused and inspired
Experience in several different functions
A person who can walk on (or part) the waters

26. PM Selection “Criteria”
Four major categories of skills that are required for the PM and serve as the key criteria for selection:
Credibility
Sensitivity
Managerial skills and adaptive leadership style
Ability to handle stress and conflict

27. Credibility The PM needs two kinds of credibility:
Technical credibility –
Perceived by key stakeholders as possessing sufficient technical knowledge to direct the project
Conversational competence
Administrative credibility
Keeping the project on schedule and within costs
Making sure reports are accurate and timely
Ensuring project team has material, equipment, and labor when needed.

28. Sensitivity
There are several ways for project managers to display sensitivity:
Understanding the organization’s political structure
Sense interpersonal conflict on the project team or between team members and outsiders
Does not avoid conflict, but confronts it and deals with it before it escalates
Keeps team members focused on problems not people
Situational “radar”--ability to sense when team members may try to “sweep things under the rug”

29. Leadership Style
Leadership: “interpersonal influence, exercised in situation and directed through the communication process, toward the attainment of a specified goal or goals.”
Other attributes may include:
enthusiasm
optimism
energy
tenacity
courage
personal maturity
adaptability

30. The PM “Moral Compass”
A PM must also have a strong sense of ethics. Some common ethical missteps are listed below:
“wired” bids and contracts (the winner has been predetermined)
“buy-in” (bidding low with the intention of cutting corners or forcing subsequent contract changes)
“kickbacks”
“covering” for team members (group cohesiveness)
taking “shortcuts” (to meet deadlines or budgets)
using marginal (substandard) materials
compromising on safety
violating standards
consultant (e.g., auditors) loyalties (to employer or to client or to public)

31. The PM Ethics Code - 1

32. The PM Ethics Code - 2

33. PM and Stress Four major causes of stress associated PM role:
Never developing a consistent set of procedures and techniques with which to manage their work
Many PMs have “too much on their plates”
Some PMs have a high need to achieve that is frustrated by the tradeoffs
The parent organization is in the middle of major
change

34. Multicultural Communications and Managerial Behavior
The importance of language cannot be overstated
Communication cannot be separated from the communicator
Managerial and personal behaviours of the PM must be considered in the communication process
Structure and style of communications
Managerial and personal behaviour

35. Multicultural Communications and Managerial Behavior
Structure and Style of Communications:
In the United States, delegation is a preferred managerial style
In cultures where authority is highly centralized, it becomes the project manager’s responsibility to seek out information
The manager of an international project cannot count on being voluntarily informed of problems and potential problems by his/her subordinates

36. Multicultural Communications and Managerial Behavior
Managerial and Personal Behavior
In a society with highly structured social classes, it is difficult to practice participative management
There is an assumption that the more educated, higher-class manager’s authority will be denigrated by using a participative style
The more structured a country’s social system, the less direct managerial communication tends to be