CHE 620 PROJECT MANAGEMENT

SUMMARY OF CHAPTER 2: THE MANY TASKS OF MANAGING AND ORGANIZING THE PROJECTS

PREPARED BY: NUR SYABILLA MOHAMED NIZA (2009802134)

PREPARED FOR: DR. ABDUL HADI

CHAPTER 2: THE MANY TASKS OF MANAGING AND ORGANIZING PROJECTS

Functional manager has many differences as compared to project manager (PM). Firstly, functional managers duty is mainly related to a supervisor. A functional manager usually has expertise in the technology being managed. However, project manager is closely related to a facilitator. He or she must ensure that those who work on any particular project have the skills and knowledge as well as the essential discipline in accomplishing the goals and objectives of the project. Besides that, another important role of a project manager is to manage and resolve any conflicts that exist during the progress of the project. Secondly, functional manager practices analytical approach whereas PM uses systems approach widely in terms of understanding and solving problems. Analytical approach centers on understanding the bits and pieces in a system, compared to systems approach which includes study of the bits and pieces, focusing on more detailed aspects. A PM must understand the whole organization which greatly influences the progress of the project to attain its specific deliverables. In short, a PM is responsible for planning, organizing, staffing, budgeting, directing and controlling the project to ensure a smooth progress. In order to handle such responsibility, a PM also has to be a good communicator. Problems arise when some of parties involved in the project, such as clients, project team members, or even the senior managers, propagate communications that may cause misconception among them. Thus, it is therefore PMs role to introduce some order into this communication mess. Figure 2.1 shows the PMs position and highlights the communication problem involved in any project.

Figure 2.1 Communication paths between a projects parties-at-interest There will be times when the PM has to be virtual project manager, as the projects intra-project communication is conducted via email. Thus, communication between PM and project team members must be frequent, open and two-way. PM also has to make sure that the senior management gets the updates on the state of the project regularly. He or she also has to ensure that the client understands the impact of uncertain changes on the projects goals of delivery time, cost and scope. The PM has three important responsibilities to the project. Firstly, he or she has to acquire sufficient resources and personnel which are essential for the realization of the project. The workers have to be competent and acquire the necessary skills and knowledge to accomplish the goals. Secondly, a PM has to have the ability to undertake and overcome obstacles or conflicts, which is common to occur in a project. They are mostly associated with technical problems, supplier problems, and client

problems. Thirdly, PM is also responsible for making the trade-offs between project cost, schedule and scope necessary to lead the project to successful and affective conclusion. Another type of trade-off occurs between projects. Occasionally, limitation of resources always becomes a problem especially when two or more projects are competing for access to the same resources. Lastly, PM has to be a good negotiator and have ability to resolve conflicts besides the persuasive character. Success at any changes in scope, cost or deliverables depends on the PMs skill at persuading others to accept the project as well as changes in its methods and scope once it has been approved. Jay Conger (1998) of Harvard Business Review described the skill of persuasion have four essential parts: (1) effective persuaders must be credible to those they are trying to persuade; (2) they must find goals held in common with those being persuaded; (3) they must use vivid language and compelling evidence; and (4) they must connect with the emotions of those they are trying to persuade. There are three main criteria of selecting a project manager: (1) credibility; (2) sensitivity; and (3) leadership, style and ethics. Technical credibility and administrative credibility are two credibility areas required from a PM. The former is where he or she should have expertise in one or more areas of knowledge relevant to the project as well as ability to explain the current state of the project, its progress and its technical problems to the senior manager. The latter is ability of the PM to gain faith from management and clients regarding the viability of projects, reports, appraisals, audits and evaluations which must be timely and accurate. A PM should be equally sensitive on interpersonal conflict between team members, or between team members and other parties-at-interest to the project. He or she should be open and honest about intra-team communication which gives influence to the success of the project. A PM should have leadership skills to keep the subordinates energized, enthusiastic, well organized and well informed which in turn keep them well motived. Professor Shenhar of the Stevens Institute of technology describes the managerial style for project management whereby as the level of technological uncertainty of a project went from low tech to very high tech, the appropriate management went from firm to highly flexible. The more complex a project, the more formal the style should be. Apart from that, a PM should also have a good sense of ethics, which is a good communication skill. There are four widely used organizations for project; (1) pure project organization; (2) functional project organization; (3) matrix project organization; and (4) mixed project organization. Each has its own advantages and disadvantages. Firstly, pure project organization is mostly preferable for large projects as it is more effective and efficient. The supplies for resources are usually sufficient and there will always be work for each member of the labour force. Pure projects are often carried out at some distance from the home office. Pure projects may have a wide range of specialists; however they have limited technological depth.

Figure 2.2 Pure project organizations.

Different with functional project organization, it is embedded in the functional group where the project will be used. The advantages of using functional project organization is it provides immediate, direct and complete contact with the most important technologies it may need as well as in-depth access. Secondly, fractional resource problem is reduced and it does not have high personnel costs as it can easily assign people to the project on part-time basis. Nevertheless, there are two drawbacks on practising functional project organization. Firstly, communications across functional department boundaries are quite difficult and require lots of process and time consuming. This can cause difficulties for some situations like requiring technological assistance from another division.

Figure 2.3 Functional project organizations. Matrix project organization is developed to capture the advantages of both pure project and functional project besides to avoid the problems associated. The PM reports to a program manager or a vice president of projects or some senior individual with a similar title whose job is to coordinate the activities of the projects. They all demand the parents resources and the use of resources must be coordinated, if not the project themselves. However, there are two distinct levels of responsibility in a matrix organization. First, there is the normal functional hierarchy that runs vertically in the figure and consists of the regular departments such as marketing, finance, manufacturing, human resources, and so on. Second, there are horizontal structures, the projects that overlay the functional departments and have some access to the functional departments competencies.

Figure 2.4 Matrix project organizations. Being able to share expertise with several projects during a limited time period makes the matrix arrangement far less expensive. Despite all the advantages of matrix organizations, they have their

own unique problems. The individual specialist borrowed from a function has two bosses. Thus, project workers often faced with conflicting orders from the PM and the functional manager. Further, the movement of resources from project to project in order to satisfy the individual schedules of the multiple projects may foster political infighting among the several PMs.

Figure 2.5 Mixed project organizations. Not only is the PM the main concern in this chapter, but also the selection of the project team. First characteristic of a good project team is technically competent. One of the reasons is to know exactly when additional technical knowledge may be required by the project. Second, the project team must be politically sensitive. Third, they need to have a strong problem orientation, as in solving any problems posed by the project. Fourth, they also need to have a strong goal orientation. Neither project teams nor PMs can succeed if their focus is on activity rather than results. Lastly, the project team need high self-esteem. Team members must be sufficiently self-confident and have sufficient trust in their fellow team members.