Understanding that Julianne has been on several of my project teams, I would assume she has the appropriate competencies

and her performance has been remarkably good enough to earn a promotion as project manager. At his point, I believe it is important to note that generally, the role (of project manager) is thrust upon people, rather than being sought; therefore project management has rightly been termed the accidental profession by more than one writer (Pinto and Kharbanda, 1995, p.42). Having said that, based on my professional experience and relevant literature, what follows is my advice on key points regarding how to go about directing and managing her project team. Organizing people and resources To be considered successful, a project should be completed within the framework of the triple constraint of scope, time and cost, i.e. deliver what was scoped, according to schedule and within budget (Sanghera, 2010). However, these constraints do not have all the same weight, which varies with the project and also to the eyes of each important project stakeholder. As a project manager one must know which of the three project parameters should be prioritized. One helpful process to determine the priority of each project parameter would be to organize a meeting with all important project stakeholders to rank each parameter in terms of five management perspectives: tempo, feasibility, efficiency, flexibility and goal-orientation (Kor and Wijnen, 2007, p.157-158). The output of this process would be a consensus rank of parameter priorities, which would be used by the project manager to efficiently manage and organize people and resources through progress control cycles. On the subject of people, I consider important to note that each activity on the project should have an owner that is responsible for its completion; though there could be many people assigned to the activity, there should be a solely responsible (Sanghera, 2010). To effectively assign roles for the project activities, I would recommend the use of a RACI chart, where names or roles are listed on one axis and scheduled activities are listed on the other, then a code is placed at the intersection of an activity and a role: responsible (R), accountable (A), consult (C), and inform (I) (University of Liverpool/Laureate Online Education, 2012). Covering all aspects of the project scope statement Considering that change is constant, changes in a project are to be expected and it would be simply unrealistic to expect otherwise (Wysocki, 2009). Regardless where changes originate from, as a project manager one must manage changes proactively: any change on the required work to complete the project (the project scope) must be controlled, that is, by managing the change request process and controlling the impact of the change once it actually occurs (Sanghera, 2010). Having said that, two effective ways to control the boundaries of a project are: 1. During the planning phase, make sure that there is a clear understanding and definition of exactly what are the required features and functions to be delivered, and the work to produce these features and functions only (Wysocki, 2009). 2. Educate the project team on how to submit all scope changes through the integrated change control process; this way only approved changes, whose impact could be managed, would be implemented (Sanghera, 2010). Communicating effectively with team members The importance of communication in project management cannot be overemphasized (Sanghera, 2010, p.136). Not only as a project manager one would actively communicate with the project team to promote commitment and cooperation, take responsibility, resolve conflicts and influence to accomplish a task (Boyatzis, 1982); but one would also have to present to the project stakeholders information regarding project status, and perhaps share other details relevant only to specific stakeholders. In all cases the challenge is to deliver the appropriate information, to the appropriate stakeholder, at the correct time and by using the appropriate communication method to produce the desired effect (Sanghera, 2010). In the case of team members, based on the project manager ability, one would intuitively understand what type of communication and information management would result most effectively, meaning that the approach would have to be tailored to the situation (Pinto and Kharbanda, 1995). For example, do

not overwhelm your less tech-savvy team members with technical jargon, and instead strip down the information to its basic form in order for it to be understood by these. In my beginning as project manager, especially in matrix organizations, more often than not I would find myself in a situation where my formal authority was limited, therefore I would have to act as a facilitator rather than a boss in order to effectively navigate the functional structures of the organization and get my project going. Through experience, I learnt how to understand the project stakeholders priority and then adapt my leadership strategy to address these. In the same way, managing team communications would be tailored to meet the needs of each team member, without losing integrity or urgency when communicating. Having said that, my above listed advice to Julianne on key points regarding how to go about directing and managing a project team aims to help in her first steps into this accidental profession. Reference List Boyatzis, R. (1982) The Competent Manager: A Model for Effective Performance. New York. Wiley Publishing. Kor, R. & Wijnen, G. (2007) 59 Checklists for Project and Programme Managers , University of Liverpool [Online]. Available from: http://site.ebrary.com/lib/liverpool/docDetail.action?docID=10209204 (Accessed: 8 September 2012). Pinto, J. and Kharbanda, O. (1995) Lessons for an accidental profession, Business Horizons, 38 (2), pp. 41-50, Business Source Premier [Online] Available from: http://ehis.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.liv.ac.uk/eds/Citations/FullTextLinkClick?sid=b32e49dc-9269-49e9-bbc8aad90b878079@sessionmgr113&vid=1&id=pdfFullText (Accessed: 8 September 2012) Sanghera, P. (2010) PMP Exam In Depth, Second Edition: Project Management Professional Study Guide for the PMP Exam. 2nd ed. Boston: Course Technology/Cengage Learning. University of Liverpool/Laureate Online Education (2012) Lecture Notes Week 1: Directing and managing project execution. Available from: University of Liverpool/Laureate Online Education VLE (Accessed: 8 September 2012). Wysocki, R.K. (2009) Effective Project Management: Traditional, Agile, Extreme . 5 ed. Indianapolis: Wiley Publishing.
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