1. Chapter 3: The Project Manager Presented by: Jasim Alnahas
INEN 261: Week 3
Chapter 3:
The Project Manager
Presented by:
Jasim Alnahas

2. Chapter Learning Outcomes
If you complete the given assignments for this chapter you will:
Understand more on Functional and Project Organization.
Understand the role and importance of Project Managers.
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3. The Project Manager
The project manager can be chosen and installed as soon as the project is selected for funding
This simplifies several start up activities
The project manager can be chosen later
This makes things difficult
Senior management briefs the project manager
Project manager begins with a budget and schedule
As people are added these are refined
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Source: Meridith, J.R., and Mantel, S.K. Jr., Project Management, A Managerial Approach, Eight Edition, Wiley & Sons Inc., 2012

4. Both Functional and Project Organization requires Management
People are extracted from the functional organization to work on projects
The enterprise is organized around functions or disciplines such as:
Engineering
Finance
Legal
People
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5. Functional Management
Figure 3-1
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Source: Meridith, J.R., and Mantel, S.K. Jr., Project Management, A Managerial Approach, Eight Edition, Wiley & Sons Inc., 2012

6. Functional Management Continued
Department heads are usually functional specialists
They have the required technical skills to evaluate all members of their organization
Functional managers:
Decide who performs each task
Decide how the task is performed
Exercise a great deal of control over every aspect of the work that gets performed within their area
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Source: Meridith, J.R., and Mantel, S.K. Jr., Project Management, A Managerial Approach, Eight Edition, Wiley & Sons Inc., 2012

7. Functional vs. Project Organizational Charts
Functional Organization VP
Engineering
Mechanical
Engineering
Department
Manager
Electrical
Engineering
Department
Manager
Structural
Engineering
Department
Manager
---- Sr. Mechanical Engrs
---- Sr. Electrical Engrs
---- Sr. Structural Engrs
---- Mechanical Engrs
---- Electrical Engrs
---- Structural Engrs
---- Asst. Mechanical Engrs
---- Asst. Electrical Engrs
---- Asst. Structural Engrs
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8. Project Management Figure 3-2 6-8
Source: Meridith, J.R., and Mantel, S.K. Jr., Project Management, A Managerial Approach, Eight Edition, Wiley & Sons Inc., 2012

9. Project Management Continued
Project managers are usually generalists
It would be very unusual for a project manager to have all the technical skills that are used on their projects
Project managers:
Rarely decide who performs each task
Lack the technical skills to evaluate much of the work performed on a particular project
Exercise control very little over most aspects of the work that gets performed on the project
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Source: Meridith, J.R., and Mantel, S.K. Jr., Project Management, A Managerial Approach, Eight Edition, Wiley & Sons Inc., 2012

10. Functional vs. Project Organizational Charts
Manager
Access System
Design
Landside
Airside
---- Architects
---- Architects
---- Traffic Engrs
---- Mechanical Engrs
---- Electrical Engrs
---- Structural Engrs
---- Structural Engrs
---- Mechanical Engrs
---- Highway Engrs
---- Geotechnical Engrs
---- Electrical Engrs
---- Structural Engrs
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11. 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 project together to form a coherent whole
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12. The Functional Organization
Managers familiar with the analytical methods of his discipline
Can directly and technically supervise
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13. The Project Organization
Project Manager is a facilitator and generalist
Takes a “systems approach”
Project
Manager
Access System
Design
Landside
Airside
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14. Where do these people come from?
Functional managers start at the bottom of these functional chains and are promoted based on technical ability and managerial skills
Project managers usually plucked out of the same functional structures on the basis of their “systems thinking” and communications skills
Formalized education is usually functional in nature and that continues with “on the job training”
Project manager training is a relatively new idea but is becoming more and more popular and desired.
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15. Project Management Career Paths
1st Track: Start as a project team member
Projects have an organization to them – you gain responsibility in managing pieces of the project
2nd Track: Some organizations use shadow or assistant Project Managers
Fully responsible for first small, then larger projects
May transition to General Management career track or Mega-Project track (Seldom back to a technical track)
3rd Track: Large Engineering Organizations often have a technical track
Not strongly managerial in nature
Compensation, value and status dependant upon technical knowledge to the organization
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16. AT&T Project Management Career Paths
Program Manager
Project Manager
Manage Projects > $25 Million
Small Project
Manager
Manage $3-$25 Million Projects
months
Site Manager
Manage $1-$3 Million Projects
6 -18 months
Cost Analysis/
Schedule Engineer
Manage large site
6 months
Trainee
Project Team Member
Learn about Project management
TIME
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17. What is this thing called “Systems Thinking”
What is this thing called “Systems Thinking”? (If Project Managers are supposed to use it)
The recognition that processes and components are linked together through inputs and outputs and that they are dependant upon each other to form some useful function within an environment.
The results of the project have to fit purposefully into the organization that commissioned it and within the larger environment that it will function within.
Project Managers are “Synthesizers”
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18. Project Managers put the pieces together
Functional Managers are experts at analyzing the pieces
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19. What does a Project Manager Manage?
Project manager is largely responsible for organizing, staffing, budgeting, directing, planning, and controlling the project.
Questions faced by the project manager:
1. What needs to be done (performance)?
2. When must it be done (time)?
3. What are the resources required for this project and where do I get them (cost)?
The three things discussed in our planning session
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20. Who is the Project Manager responsible to as he/she manages a project?
Three broad and sometimes conflicting areas of responsibility:
To the parent organization (his employer)
To the customer who commissioned the project
To the project team members
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21. Responsibilities to the Parent Organization
Conservation of resources (Don’t spend money that you don’t have to.)
Timely and accurate project communications
Careful, competent management of the project (Get the Project done!)
Protect the firm from high risk (Some projects can sink the organization.)
Accurate reporting of project status with regard to budget and schedule
No Surprises = Excellent Project Management
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22. Responsibilities to the Customer
To deliver the project product which was asked for and promised
Resolve conflict between competing project interests
Ensure performance, budgets, and deadlines are met
Fairness, respect, honesty
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23. Responsibilities to the Project Team
To provide a work environment where they can excel and grow
Challenging work is highly valued by professionals
Fairness, respect, honesty
An experience which will be career enhancing
Generally what any supervisor should be doing … however in a project this relationship is just “temporary”
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24. Frequently the PM has no “Direct Subordinates”, but has several people “working for him” on the project team
The project team members are drawn from the functional organization
They are loaned to the project during the temporary period of project performance
Despite this lack of formalized “boss/subordinate” relationship, the PM needs to provide supervision which will both get the project done and grow the people who are working on the project
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25. Special Demands falling on a Project Manager (each highlighted in subsequent slides)
Acquiring adequate resources
Acquiring and motivating personnel
Dealing with obstacles
Making project tradeoffs
Failure and the Risk/Fear of failure
Communicating Broadly
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26. Acquiring Adequate Resources
The PM has to make sure he has the resources to complete the project (on time, on budget, to the agreed upon level of quality)
Resources initially budgeted for projects are frequently insufficient
Happens because estimates get cut as they are reviewed by higher level managers
The PM must “scramble, elicit aid, work late, wheedle, threaten etc.”
Sometimes resource trade-offs are required (better people can offset poor equipment
Subcontracting may be an option
May require spirited debates with functional management staff
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27. Getting to a “Win-Win” with a functional manager
Discuss the value of Project Success as benefiting the entire Corporation
Discuss how a Project Success will benefit the functional manager directly
Improve utilization
Provide experience for returning staff
Attempt to understand the threats the Project poses to the functional manager
Can they be mitigated?
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28. Acquiring and Motivating People
A major challenge for the project manager is that most people required for a project must be “borrowed”. (More negotiations with functional managers)
The people the PM wants and needs are the same people the FM wants and needs
Projects can have more glamour or offer an escape making the FM jealous
Often, the functional manager retains control of personnel evaluation, salary, and promotion for those people lent out to projects
If this is the case the project only offers challenging work
The good news in that is that professionals are motivated by challenging work
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29. Characteristics of an effective team members
High quality technical skills
You need to get the work done
Political sensitivity
Teams report in two directions (temporarily)
Strong problem orientation
Put the discipline to work on the problem
Strong goal orientation
People have to do whatever it takes
High self-esteem
Comfortable with success and failure
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30. Every Project has its Obstacles (problems). What are they?
At the beginning the obstacles are resource related
My goodness, how are we ever going to get it done?
In the middle they are tradeoff related
How do we adjust to get to the target of what, when and how much?
At project completion problems involve last minute schedule and technical changes and team transition
Can we tweak this and get it done quicker?
What will we do when we are done?
What I need is a list of
specific unknown problems
that we will encounter!
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31. Making Project Goal Trade-offs
Trading Project cost, schedule and performance (scope)
Reducing the project performance (scope) may reduce project schedule and project cost
Reducing project schedule and scope will reduce project cost
Reducing project schedule with scope the same may increase costs
Reducing project cost without reducing scope may increase schedule
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32. Making Project Goal Trade-offs (contd.)
Relative importance of project objectives for each stage of the project life cycle as presented by the author
Do you buy it?
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33. Avoiding Project Failure
Two types of Projects fail for different reasons
Classifying your project may help to avoid failure
Type 1 – Well understood, simple, we have done them before
Type 2 – Not well understood, complicated, many unknowns
Both can fail
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34. Why would Type 1 fail?
Type 1 - these projects are generally well-understood, routine projects
Appear simple at the beginning of the project
Good plan
But something happens to take us off the plan and we never pick it up
The project fails to meet cost or schedule targets because we have not modified the plan to get back on track
We have done it so many times that nothing can go wrong (but it did!)
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35. Type 2 fails for different reasons
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 (What are we supposed to do?
Fuzzy plans lead to fuzzy and failed performance
The Project Team doesn’t know what to do
The client doesn’t know what to expect
In our rush to get something done we neglect to agree on what is needed
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36. Avoiding these types of failures
The execution strategy must include frequent checks on adherence to schedule and budget and a clear definition of who is responsible for replanning the project if it gets off track
Type 2
The project planning must have a clear milestone event where the Project Team and the client demonstrate understanding on the “what” of the project
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37. Communication and the Project Manager
Most of the project manager’s time is spent communicating with the many groups interested in the project
Repeat with emphasis
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38. What is communicated?
Considerable time must be spent selling, reselling, and explaining the project
What are we doing?
Why are we doing it?
The relevance of the project will be tested throughout the project life cycle
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39. Who does the Project Manager communicate with?
Clients
Members of the project team
Functional departments
Top management of the performing organization and top management of the client organization
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40. To be an effective communicator the PM must understand and be able to convey to others:
Why the project exists
The consequences of project failure
What it takes to get and keep top management support
How to develop and use an information network
When and how to be flexible
Hold them or fold them
Negotiations
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41. What kinds of people are promoted into Project Manager positions
Strong technical background (gives credibility with the team and functional managers)
Results oriented manager
Maturity
Availability
Someone on good terms with senior executives (more credibility)
A person who can keep the project team performing (more than keeping them happy)
Experience working in several different departments (credibility)
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42. Key Traits of Successful Project Manager
Someone who has the desire to complete the project
Someone who has the skills and temperament to get the project completed
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43. Project Managers must have:
Credibility
Sensitivity
Leadership and Management ability
A tolerance for stress
It is not enough to possess these things – You need to be perceived by others to possess these things.
We will touch on each of these areas
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44. Credibility is a big part of PM success
Technical credibility - perceived by the client, senior executives, the functional departments, and the project team as possessing sufficient technical knowledge to direct the project
Administrative credibility - keeping the project on schedule and within costs and making sure reports are accurate and timely. Must also make sure the project team has material, equipment, and labor when needed.
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Chapter 3-18

45. Sensitivity (Comes with Maturity)
Understanding the organization’s political structure
Recognizes interpersonal conflict on the project team or between team members, parent organization, and the client(s)
Does not avoid conflict, but confronts it and deals with it before it escalates
Keeps team members “cool” (productive)
Has “technical sensitivity” - ability to sense when team members may try to “sweep things under the rug”
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46. Leadership Ability Leadership has been defined as:
“interpersonal influence, exercised in situation and directed through the communication process, toward the attainment of a specified goal or goals.”
Leaders demonstrate:
enthusiasm
optimism
energy
tenacity
courage
personal maturity
ethical behavior
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47. Project Managers are subjected to stress caused by:
Absence of a consistent set of procedures and techniques with which to manage their projects
Having too much to do
A high need to achieve which is consistently thwarted by the project demands
A changing parent organization
This course is primarily aimed at #1.
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48. Ethical Issues confronted on Projects
“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)
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49. The impact of culture on the project and the Project Manager
National culture affects:
The value of time
The value of relationships
The value of trust
The status of engineering disciplines
Corporate culture affects
Commitment to the project
Status and credibility of the Project Manager
Status and credibility of the disciplines on the project
The successful PM can sense the culture he is working within and adjust accordingly
Our course in Global Engineering Management
treats some of the National Culture issues
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50. Impact of Institutional Environments
In general systems theory, the environment of a system is defined as everything outside the system that receives outputs from it or delivers inputs to it
Project managers must consider the following environments and how they may impact a project:
Socioeconomic environment
Legal environment
The business cycle as an environment
Technological environment
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51. Summary of Chapter 3 Projects are focused on problems not disciplines
Project success depends on support of top management
Project Managers are generalists, not specialists
Project Managers have responsibilities to:
The Parent Organization
The Project Team
The Project Success
Project Managers get things done
Project Managers communicate
Project Managers appreciate how their project fits within other environments and contexts
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