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Structure
2.1 Introduction:
Objectives:
2.2 Project manager‟s knowledge base.
Self Assessment Questions: 1
2.3. Developing People Management Skills
Self Assessment Questions: 2
2.4 Business related Competency
Self Assessment Questions: 3
2.5 Business Knowledge in Project Professionals
Self Assessment Questions: 4
2.6 Summary
2.7 Terminal Questions:
2.8 Answers to SAQs and TQ‟s
2.1 Introduction:
Today, managers in any organization are facing increasingly complex challenges in their
regular work life. These challenges are the result of high escalation in factors like
salaries, prices of raw materials, union demands, pressure from the shareholders, high
inflation, lack of borrowing power with financial institutions etc. these environmental
conditions have existed before but not to the degree that they do today.
The project manager is responsible for coordinating and integrating various activities
across the organizational functional areas. Hence, he should be a person with varying
quantum of knowledge and skills and much have sufficient knowledge and competencies
in several areas of management. His behaviour is very important because the functional
employees at the interface position find themselves reporting to more than one boss.
Objectives:
To understand the competencies of a project manager
To learn about various skills required by a project manager
To understand the need for business related competencies for a project manager
To know about qualities required to become a successful project manager.
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Perhaps the need for a basic degree in engineering comes from acceptance of the fact
that an engineer's main business is design, operation and maintenance of systems,
though the emphasis there is mainly on hardware systems. The hardware system forms
the core in any project and the concern for effective performance of the hardware is so
over-riding that almost all recruitment advertisements for project managers look for an
engineer having a basic degree in the hardware system of the project. Whether this is
necessary can be debated at length, but the employers as also the educational planners
seem to have agreed on one point that a project manager must have basic education in
the hardware system which forms the heart of any project.
An organization chart, in most cases, is the simplest and quickest way to demonstrate
the project manager's authority. Details such as where a project manager is positioned,
to whom he reports, those with whom he communicates, and all those who report to him,
will tell much about a project manager's authority though not in very clear terms.
A project manager may be positioned in many situations, and in each case the authority
he can wield and consequently the end results he can produce will be different. He
serves, at best, as a staff assistant to the chief executive. The project manager, in this
position, does not make any decision for the project, nor does he provide any staff
service to the functional departments who make all the decisions relating to the project.
The project manager merely collects information—collects and communicates the same
to the chief executive. This arrangement may be chosen by a chief executive who wants
to directly control the project but cannot devote much time to keep track of details.
The chief executive may expect the project manager to coordinate and expedite the
project which the latter will find a very trying proposition in view of his not having any
authority. He may influence some decisions taken by the chief executive or by the
functional departments, but he cannot himself make any decision which can become
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binding for others. In other words, he has to rely on personal authority for getting things
done and not on positional authority.
Many would consider that at least for engineering construction projects, the project
manager should possess a basic degree in engineering—advanced education in project
management and/or training in effective project management could follow. Accordingly,
almost all the universities who are thinking of formal education in project management
are planning for post-graduate programmes after a basic engineering education. This,
one could see, is slightly different from general management education programmes
where even arts graduates are admitted.
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2. Which of the following is not one of the listed areas of competency for a
Project Manager?
A. Communication skills
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B. Interpersonal Skills
C. Cultural Competency
D. None of the above
1. Team Building: Building the program is one of the prime responsibilities of the
project manager. This involves maintaining
a. Effective Communications
b. Sincere interest in professional growth of team members.
c. Commitment to the project.
5. Planning skill: It requires the ability to negotiate the necessary resource and
commitments from key personnel in the various supporting organizations with
little or no formal authority. The planning must be done such that at any point of
time in the project, the plan remains viable.
6. Organizational skill: The project manager must be a social architect , that is, he
must understand how the organization work. And how to work with the
organization. Organizational skills are particularly important during the project
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10. Resource allocation skill: Once the project begins, different types of resources
are needed at different stages. The project manager must understand this need
for varying resources and be capable of allocating resources as and when
wanted.
In many cases, the project manager will just have to take a calculated risk that the team
member possesses these characteristics even though the individual has not previously
demonstrated that he or she has them. It will become obvious very quickly whether or
not the individual possesses these characteristics. If not, and if those characteristics are
critical to the team member's role in the project, the project manager or the team
member's line manager will have to correct the team member's behavior.
Thus the project manager must be both socially and technically aware to understand
how the organization functions and how these functions will affect the project
organization of the particular job to be done. The project manger must also understand
the culture and value system of the organization he is working with.
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Some of these team structures such as project teams and cross functional teams were
not necessarily new, but how the teams operated and the impact of these teams on
organizations were far different and much more empowered than in the past to make
changes. The team-based structure quickly become a norm in organizations Business
and projects benefited when people together well as a team. Successful team based
companies saw higher employee morale, innovation, and financial success. But creating
a productive, sustainable team environment took more work.
In the past decade, the focus on strategies and process has significantly shifted to team
behaviors and project executions. It has been recognized that successful execution
requires a stronger emphasis on people skills such as leadership and collaborations,
and team behaviors around decision making, problem solving, and conflict resolution. To
help, companies began personalizing their value statements by defining specific
behaviors that supported those values. These values define how people work together
on a day to day basis.
Having balance on the team in all of the characteristics discussed in the previous section
is certainly a worthy goal, but it is a goal not likely to be reached. In reality, the team is
formed more on availability than on any need to balance its membership. That means
that teams are not balanced, but they are the team nevertheless. What's a project
manager to do?
First of all, the project manager had better know where the imbalance exists. What
characteristics does the team have? Where are its strengths and where are its
weaknesses? For example, suppose a confrontation has arisen with the client. We
would much rather send an accommodator than a converger to resolve the
confrontation. However, there might not be an accommodator on the team.
Teams are most likely to be formed without knowledge of this kind of information. It is
only after the fact that these imbalances are discovered. On a larger scale, the project
manager needs to determine which team members have a greater likelihood of success
on which types of work assignments. Build the strategy. If you still have gaping holes,
you need a team development plan. That is the topic of the next section.
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D. Writing Skills
It can be easily understood that on some matters the project manager will have no
authority, and on others he may either have absolute authority or share with corporate
and functional managers. Therefore, unless there is some documentation about the
project manager's authority, there is bound to be some confusion. This would partly
explain why project managers in different organizations may function differently. Even in
the same organization two project managers may not be able to function identically if
some minimum documentation does not exist.
For a company executing projects either regularly or for the first time, it would be neces-
sary for the chief executive to issue what may be called a project charter soon after the
project manager is appointed. The charter, at its minimum, may define the project scope,
the project goals, name the project manager and his directing authority, name the project
reviewing authority and request cooperation of all concerned in the execution of the
project. Only the inexperienced would believe that problems relating to authority get
resolved once a project manual is prepared.
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A consensus on the same has not been reached as yet. Meanwhile, it may be
worthwhile for us to discuss what our expectations from the project manager are and
leave it to the educational planners to design the curriculum for the education and
training of project managers.
A project manager requires a unique set of roles and responsibilities for executing his
duties. It would appear that these may vary depending on the agency a project manager
represents. Of course, the roles and responsibilities of the owner's project manager
would not be exactly the same as that of the prime contractor or that of a project
management consultant. The project manager‟s specific tasks falls into two main
elements like:
1. He has the responsibility to define „How‟ the task will be done and „where‟ it
will be done.
2. He also has the responsibility of providing sufficient resources to accomplish the
objectives with the project constraints.
In order to fulfill the above said responsibilities, the project manager requires
competencies in the following business areas.
4 Influences Others
Demonstrates core values and beliefs during good and bad times
Builds constructive and effective relationships and uses group process
skills to lead or direct a group
He anticipates the effect of an action on people's image of the project and
uses facts, reasons and data to build support.
5 Motivates Others
Creates a climate in which people want to do their best
Empowers others by pushing tasks and decisions down and sharing
ownership and visibility
Makes each individual feel his/her work is important
6 Organizational Savvy
Is sensitive to how people and organizations function
Maneuvers through complex political situations effectively and quietly
Anticipates where the landmines are and plans his/her approach
accordingly
7 Inspires Ownership and Commitment
Sets challenging goals for self and others and expects high performance
and quality outcomes
Requires compliance with project standards
Accepts overall responsibility for success or failure of the project
8 Problem Solving Ability
Defines problems and identifies root causes
Verifies assumptions and conducts risk assessment
Facilitates group problem solving
9 Strategic Communicator
Keeps key stakeholders informed regarding project status, milestone
performance, meeting notifications and outcomes and other needed
information
Orchestrates communication so that it is understood, timely and
meaningful to team members, project sponsors and other stakeholders
Provides communication is that both strategic and tactical
10 Team Manager
Blends people into teams when needed and defines team goals,
responsibilities and measurements for success
Creates a spirit and feeling of belonging in his/her team
Lets people be responsible for their work while holding them accountable
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11 Capacity to Execute
Marshals resources (people, funding, material, support) to get things done
and uses them effectively and efficiently
Orchestrates multiple activities at once to accomplish a goal
Keeps people focused on the most important goals and translates them
into specific actions that can be broadly understood
Continually and publicly measures and assesses project status and
performance against visible standards
Consistently holds people accountable
12 Budget and Fiscal Capacity
Develops realistic budgets and guides work within budgetary constraints
Is sensitive to the agency's various funding streams, fiscal periods and
restrictions
13 Contracting Process
Uses specifications, deadlines, incentives and penalties to obtain vendor
services and deliverables
14 Defining Work
Uses a work breakdown structure to identify, organize and schedule tasks
to ensure timely completion
Managing Project Parameters
15 Works with all levels of stakeholders to define project goal, requirements
and scope
Leads a requirements gathering session so that identification of
requirements can be completed and approved
16 Project Performance
Manages a project by measuring and monitoring status/performance
Takes corrective actions as and when required
Prioritizes unexpected tasks and issues and manages important tasks
simultaneously
17 Project Planning
Estimates work effort and resources required using input from subject
matter experts, work breakdown structures and questioning techniques.
Determines workflow and critical path
In other words, once the project manager identifies the requirement for the project, it
becomes his responsibility to identify the technical criteria. The only exception in the
area of R and D here the line manager is usually more technically sound. The line
manager also has the duty and power of allocating resources and appointing jobs to
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different people. The functional or line manager is usually under tremendous pressure to
live up to their commitments. They have to cope with;
Project management has a special set of tools and techniques, which has scientific
approaches enabling the project managers to plan and evaluate the progress f the
project. But, these tools and techniques are not an end in themselves as they are
capable of generating only numbers and not solutions. It is left to the human wisdom to
interpret these numeric results and implement changes in the project suitably. Thus, the
tools indicate „what; is to be done, but do not indicate how is must be done.
The project manager therefore must plan, monitor and control the project. Along with
handling people and situations, a project manager need to develop competencies in
technical areas in order to handle the technical issues and guide his subordinates on the
delicate issues related to technology. Hence, he should be equipped with some technical
tools and techniques in handling projects.
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There could be several variations of the execution arrangement. Take, for instance, the
owner's project manager. He has a responsibility to ensure that productivity of the capital
investment in the project is the highest, i.e. the owner company should be able to build
more projects or more saleable products or outputs with same or lesser capital
investment. Now the project manager for a work-package contract could not be charged
with this responsibility. His job is to complete the scope of work entrusted to his
company as per contract specifications.
To be true to the definition and concept of the project and that of project management,
we should not accept such views. Accordingly, while a sub-contractor may designate his
manager as project manager, what he performs should not represent the complete roles
and responsibilities of a project manager. In fact, they are only discharging certain
limited roles and responsibilities which have been delegated to them; they are not
discharging the total function of project management.
A project manager should have fixed roles and responsibilities, and if it so happens that
due to the design of project execution arrangement, a subcontractor's manager also
performs the same, then and then alone, we should call him a project manager. This
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Some of the above roles and responsibilities can be considered as general management
capabilities.
3. Which of the following is not one of the roles and responsibilities of the
project manager?
A. System Administration
B. Negotiating for commitments
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C. Contract Management
D. All of the above.
This would not be a viable proposition since we may not get many individual specialists
in all aspects of a cement project from limestone prospecting to cement dispatch to meet
the requirement of any country. Neither will those individuals be young and alert enough
to be trained in any new art and science of management.
We believe that this is not necessary. The reality of life teaches us that no individual in
our society, howsoever gifted he might be, can be complete by himself. We all do and
need to supplement each other to survive. This holds true for any system, and in project
management we talk of management-only through system approach.
It is the synergy that we need to bank upon, and not the energy of a few supermen for
completing our giant projects or completing the great task of elevating our standard of
living through techno-economic projects. If we have been able to achieve success in
some of our projects, without proper education or training in project management, we
must admit we have been able to do so because of a few supermen. We need
education, and training in project management, because no country in the world is lucky
enough to have such supermen in large numbers.
The Six Phases „of the business knowledge areas to be possessed by a Project
manager are given below.
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PAHSE DESCRIPTION
Phase 1: Discovery phase. The team investigates, discusses,
Knowledge about the clarifies, and defines the situation. It is important for the
environment or situations team to understand the root causes and evidence that led to
the need for a decision.
Phase II: Characterized by brainstorming and searching for new ideas
Knowledge about and alternatives for resolving the situation, which should
handling teams lead to better choices for the decision. Above all, the team
needs to avoid a rush to judgment
Phase III: Define the criteria for evaluating the alternative decisions.
Ability of making right This involves identifying the advantages and disadvantages
decision of each alternative. Whatever approach is used, the result
should be a ranking of alternatives from most desirable to
least desirable.
Phase IV: Begins once the alternative is chosen. This is the planning
Decision action plan phase for the project team. The team determines activities,
resources, and time lines that are required to implement the
decision. This phase requires a concerted effort to obtain
buy-in from all affected parties.
Phase V: Decision Learning opportunity for the project team. The team
evaluation planning identifies what did and did not work, as well as areas in
which it can improve and how to do so. The value of this
discussion lies in the team's willingness to be honest and
straightforward with one another
Phase VI: Evaluation of Focuses on the quality of results. The team evaluates the
outcome and process situation: Was the situation improved satisfactorily, or will
another round be required? Was the situation defined
correctly, or is revision required? Did the process work as
expected, or will it need adjustment for the next attempt?
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2.6 Summary
In the past three decades, business management has dramatically changed, prior to
1970, management was predominantly top down, rules based, and autocratic. A
militaristic philosophy was common. This changed as companies realized that when
power was restricted to the top few, creativity and discretionary performances suffered.
In the 1980s, team based values driven organizations appeared. More employee
participate philosophies were introduced.
Companies were no longer driven by rules and autocrats but by systems and teams.
They were still managed by rules, policies and standard operating procedures. The
effect was to standardize behaviors and shape people to fit process. This visionary
1990s inspired a shared mission, vision, values and objectives approach and opened the
process for greater employee participation with a shared vision and plan people were
considered in Sync with the direction and priorities of management.
SAQ 1
(1) B
(2) C
SAQ 2
(1) D
SAQ 3
(1) E
(2) D
(3) A
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SAQ 4
(1) A
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