Project Management Week 11-13

Managing a Project

Define Leader:

Managing - Coping with Complexity

• Formulate plans & objectives

• Monitor results

• Take corrective action

• Expedite activities

• Solve technical problems

• Serve as a peace maker

• Make tradeoffs among time, costs, and project scope

Leading a Project

Leading - Coping with Change

• Recognize the need to change to keep the project on track

• Initiate change

• Provide direction and motivation

• Innovative and adapt as neccessary

• Integrate assigned resources

Manager

Get things done through other people

Engaging Project Stakeholders

Stakeholders

• People and organizations that are actively involved in the project or whose interest may be positively or negatively affected by the project

Engaging 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

• Project MGMT is tough, exciting, and rewarding

Managers

• Not good to micro-manage unless someone is looking or needing help

• Also good to observe people

Identify Stakeholders

Whose cooperation do we need?

Whose approval do we need?

Whose opposition could be detrimental to the project or keep us from accomplishing our goals?

Influence of Exchange

The Law of Reciprocity

• One good deed deserves another, and likewise, one bad deed deserves another

• If you wrong someone, they will wrong you back

Quid Pro Quo

• Mutual exchange of resources and services builds relationships

• You scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours, feel like you owe it to someone

Influence “Currencies” (Cohen and Bradford)

• Cooperative relationships are built on the exchange of organizational “currencies” (favours)

• Expect something in return evnetually

Commonly Traded Organziational Currencies

• Task-related currencies

• Position-related currencies

• Inspiration-related currencies

• Relationship-related currencies (mutual exchange)

• Personal-related currencies

Management by Wandering Around (MBWA)

MBWA involves managers spending the majority of their time outside their offices in order to have face-to-face interactions with employees, building cooperative relationships

• Relationships should be built before they are needed (MOST IMPORTANT FOR MANAGERS)

Characteristics of Effective Project Managers

• Initiate contact with key stakeholders to keep abreast of developments

• Anticipate potential problems

• Provide encouragement

• Reinforce the objectives and vision of the project

• Intervene to resolve conflicts and prevent stalemates from occuring

Managing Upward Relations

Project success is strongly affected by the degree to which a project has the support of top management

(Strong managers recognize these things without output)

(Senority can make big decisions by themselves)

Top Management Must:

• Provide an appropriate budget

• Be responsive to unexpected needs

• Send a clear signal to others in the organization about the importance of the project and the need to cooperate

• Rescind unreasonable demand

• provide additional resources

• Recognize the accomplishments of team members

Leading By Example

• Standards of performance

• Problem solving

• Priorities

• Having high ethical standards

• Urgency (setting the expectation

• Cooperation

Ethics & Project Mangement

Ethical Dilemmas - situations where it is difficult to determine whether conduct is right or wrong

(IIntegrity is established)

• Padding (extra time) of cost and time estimations

• Exaggerating the 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

Building Trust: The Key to Exercising Influence

Trust

• Is an elusive concept

• is a function of character (personal motives) and competence (skills necessary to realize motives)

• Is sustained through frequent face-to-face contact

The core of highly effective people is a character ethic (Stephen covey in Seven Habits of Hughly Effective People)

• Consistency (more predictable)

Qualities of Effective Project Manager

1. Effective communication skills

2. Systems thinking

3. Personal integrity

4. Proactivity

5. High emotional intelligence (EQ) - reacting appropriately in different situations

6. General business perspective

7. Effective time management

8. Optimism

Contradictions of Project Management

• Innovate and maintain stability

• See the big picture while getting their hands dirty

• Be hands-off/hands-on (hands on means help them enough where they can be hands off)

• Encourage individuals, but stress the team

• Be flexible but firm

• Manage team vs organizational loyalties