In a perfect world, the project manager would simply implement the project plan and the project would be completed. The project would work with others to formulate a schedule, organize a project team, keep track of the progress, and announce what needs to be done next, and then everyone would charge along. (Larson p.339) We do not live in a perfect world and most of the time things do not go according to plans. When situations arise project participants get upset, become angry with each other, technical glitches accrue, and sometimes the job takes longer than excepted. The project manager job is to get the project back running smoothly, serve as a peacemaker, and make appropriate trade off, time cost, and the scope of the projects. …show more content…
(Larson p 340) Good management brings about order and stability by formulating plans and objectives, designing structure and procedures, monitoring results against plans, and taking corrective action when needed. Leadership involves recognizing and articulating the need to significantly alter the direction and operating of the work together to overcome hurdles produced by the change and to realize new objectives. Strong leadership is not always necessary to successfully complete a project. Well-defined projects that encounter no significant surprises require little leadership. It takes a special person to perform both roles well. (Larson p 340) There are many different sets of people and groups involved in a project. Each of these groups of stakeholders brings different expertise, standards, priorities, and agendas to the project. Stakeholders are any groups that have a stake – or a personal interest – in the performance and actions of an organization. Different stakeholders have different needs, expectations, and levels of interest. (Kelly/Williams p. 56) To be effective, a project manager must understand how stakeholders can affect the project and develop methods for managing the dependency. The natures of these dependencies are identified are: • The project team is a team that provides new tasks and skill development. The key is keeping the work stimulating and involving. Individuals at this stage also need continued affirmation
At this point the scope of the project has been defined in detail and the project team are ready to be appointed. Although a Project Manager can be appointed at any stage of the project, s/he will need to be appointed prior to the establishment of the project team. The Project Manager is responsible for all aspects of project performance including: planning, budget execution, project execution, and close-out Funding.
According to Vance Packard, leadership appears to be the art of getting others to want to do something that you are convinced should be done (Lewis, 2003). Leadership is a pertinent part of project management. James Lewis (2003) says leadership is not a position; it’s the ability to gain commitment from people. According to Professor Warren G. Bennis, “Leaders are people who do the right thing; managers are people who do things right”. The importance of leadership in a project is demonstrated in the case study, “A Peaceful Evacuation: Building a Multi-Project Team Battalion by Leading Upward”. This case study involves two leaders, who had similar, but mostly, different
Every successful team begins with a quality leader. Without a leader in place projects and tasks may become chaotic, overwhelming, or unachievable. Kelly (2012) defines leadership as, “A process of influence in which the leader influences others toward goal achievement” (p. 2). Leadership can occur in different forms and styles. Some of those different styles include democratic, laissez-faire, autocratic, and transformational.
Being appointed as the Project Manger an important task; John C. Maxwell stated “A leader is one who knows the way, goes the way, and shows the way.” This is what the role of a Project Manager is. The role requires defining the start and end dates, developing plans, monitoring progress, conduct meetings, oversee budgets , and make sure the direction and project remains on schedule.
Successfully managing a project is synonymous with managing people, which takes management and leadership skills. Project managers will only be as successful as the people on the team and the relationship with the stakeholders. Accordingly, identifying key players and understanding the role and
One of the key factors contributing to a projects success is identifying the correct key stakeholders early in the project process and engaging with them to draw on their knowledge.There are different types of stakeholders in projects and evaluating their characteristics and managing their interrelationships appropriately have a strong impact on the project success. (Celar S; Turic M; Vickovic L (2010)).
The project manager is the person in charge of planning the project, so he will define the scope of work, who should perform each work, and how long it should take and specify the technique needed to perform the work.
It is the responsibility of project manager to make sure that the customer is satisfied and the work scope is completed in a quality manner, using budget, and on time. The Project Manager has primary responsibility for providing leadership in planning, organizing and controlling the work effort to accomplish the project objectives. In other words, the project manager provides the leadership to project team to accomplish the project objective. The project manager coordinates the activities of various team members to ensure that they perform the right tasks at the proper time, as a cohesive group. The different roles of project manager are as follows: • • • • • • • • • • Planning Organizing Controlling Leading Communicating Cognitive functions Self management functions Motivational and personal development functions Customer awareness functions Organizational savvy functions
Abstract—Managing a project team requires an understanding and knowledge of modern management as well as the knowledge of the design and construction process. Nowadays, associations in the development area use groups to meet today 's global competition and client desires, however, they require better methods for assessing the viability of the groups. To guarantee that development groups are successful and viable, development organizations must advance, measure, and assess their groups ' viability. A project team is bound by a certain set of constraints, for example, delivering a construction project in a required time frame and so they need to see the big picture or have a clear set of goal planned in order to execute the project in time and with good quality. This paper is outlined to provide details regarding the roles and responsibilities of the different members involved in a project management team and what factors contribute to conflicts within the team and how they should be resolved.
Ideally, the requirement for an IS project would be specified in some detail before planning begins. If the requirement is not detailed enough, what steps can the project manager take to improve the likelihood of the project’s success?
Stakeholders are often considered as they who have an interest in a project. However, this definition includes those who have no impact on the definition phase of a project hence in terms of project management stakeholders are they who can influence a project not only inside the construction process but also outside this process. The former are a subsystem of a project’s system and the latter are part of the environment of the project. The stakeholders who belong to the environment of the project can affect the early stages and the important phase of project definition, which makes their management of great importance. Other powerful stakeholders are member of the client’s environment and ask influence indirectly to the project through the client. Financial institutions and funding bodies could be considered as this kind of stakeholders (Walker). Winch argues that stakeholders are those who have benefits or losses as a result of a project and classifies the stakeholders to two categories: the internal and the external stakeholders. The internal stakeholders are separated in two parts: the demand side, which is constituted by the client’s
The project manager is accountable for correspondence, including status reporting, threat organization, increasing of issues that can 't be dictated by the gathering. In most cases, making sure the project is delivered on budget can schedule and within scope where the team members are responsible for executing tasks and producing deliverable.
Leadership involves recognizing and articulating the need to significantly alter the direction and operation of the project, aligning people to the new direction, and motivating them to work together to overcome hurdles produced by the change and to realize new objectives. Indeed, leadership is all about coping with change. One of the things that makes good project managers valuable is that they have the ability to both manage and as well as lead a project. In doing so they recognize the need to manage the project interfaces and build a social network that allows them to find out what needs to be done.
This work is based on the premise that stakeholders have a huge level of influence on a project and they explicitly or implicitly have a high stake on the success or failure of a project. It’s a common understanding that the success and effectiveness of a project is directly proportional to the competency of the project team. Rarely is it understood that the success or failure depends on actual contributions from multiple sources like senior management, operational and functional managers, suppliers, contractors, support teams, customers and the project sponsors. The project manager owns not only the project but also the task of having all stakeholders and dependents involved. The project manager must have a substantially broad influence circle, and their management style requires constant interaction to gain the cooperation and attention of those on whom the project depends. Precisely, the project manager must be a natural leader than a good manager.
Managing projects efficiently has always been a key to success for any organization, especially with continuous increase in global competition. For successful completion of any project organisation require proper management and control as well as planning to deliver the desired outcomes. Organizations today have acknowledged the concept of projects as a structure for conveying change; however this is not enough for an organisation to be successful. Even organizations with all type of project experience with scarce monetary and human resource sometimes fail deliberately, because they fail to realize the value of stakeholders. As described by Grimble and Wellard (1997) “[stakeholders are] all those who affect, and/or are affected by, the policies, decisions, and actions of the system; they can be individuals, communities, social groups or institutions of any size, aggregation or level in society. The term thus includes policy-makers, planners and administrators in government and other organisations, as well as commercial and subsistence user groups.” Without the on-going cooperation of stakeholders, it’s almost impossible for an organisation to survive, as stakeholders and organisations are mutually interdependent. Stakeholders are those individuals who have a keen interest in organization; also their presence can positively or negatively impact the outcome of the projects. The key to success relies on finding who the organizations stakeholders are and forming successful