Section A Project management review Question

2. What makes a good project manager? Why ?

1. Project scope – as clear this might be, the question here is: what is the vision of the
scope? What substantial things will tick the checkbox of 'project completed' are to be
deeply understood? As project managers, need to ensure that the stakeholders
understand the reason behind the project and key delivery points not making
assumptions. This will improve the relationship and communication with them when
issues emerge.

2. Program management – A solid project manager should be bringing a practical, user

friendly, decipherable and deliverable programme. A place where all stakeholders of all
levels of engagement, can understand each dependency. Re-baselining? Yes, it may
come to this, but it is not a mitigation strategy.

3. Finance – This is an easy blame game. The project was late because we didn’t have
the funds / assets. A good project manager should realize their finance down to the
bottom and a good project manager will be able to manage their worker and funds, so
evaluate tenders realistically not to what people want to see,

4. Documentation – To know your own project is to understand the nuts and bolts. Make
sure that includes the documentation to being up-to-date, it is much easier to control if it
is user friendly and accessible instead of elsewhere. Ultimately these tools enable the
teams to keep the project moving no matter what.

5. Development – team is so vital! Make sure that not only are yourself developing the
venture and conveying positive change your team is learning and engaged. Don’t simply
delegate to your team tedious tasks, comprehend what they want to achieve and learn,
it may take the extra effort but keeping the team excited will increase productivity as
their interest and engagement levels are at a high. The person you hire or develop
should be able to do your job within the target, so it can move on to bigger, more
exciting challenges
 Q13 What is “student syndrome”? As a project manager, why should you be wary of
“student syndrome” in project planning and scheduling?

Student syndrome basically is referring to “planned procrastination”. Used to highlight

the ever-increasing practice of leaving a lot of work until the last moment, while
originally working at a very relaxed pace with lots of slack

Any project could suffer occasionally from the Student Syndrome at any resource level,
at the Project Manager level, and at the stakeholders level. This is normal. However,
when the Student Syndmore is part of the overall project’s and/or the organization’s
culture, there will be many disadvantages for the project, such as:

 Reduced quality: Since all the work is concentrated in a shorter period, quality is
expected to be negatively affected.
 Reduced scope: When trying to finish tasks fast with very little time and no buffer,
the Project Manager will be forced to reduce the original scope for the task in order
deliver on time which will affect quality.
 Stressed team: A stressed team is bad news for any Project Manager. A stressed
team cannot be pushed further and increasing the work hours will reduce the
productivity.
 Risking the Project Schedule: The Student Syndrome is tolerable for a few, non-
critical tasks. But when the number of critical tasks affected increases, then whole
schedule will be at risk.
 Loss of Stakeholders Confidence: Any product or an important task, with a
largely reduced quality and scope without the stakeholders’ consent may jeopardize
the reputation of the Project Manager, and will probably result in the loss of the
stakeholders’ confidence.

In a worst-case scenario, the Student Syndrome can cause a project to be killed (or
indefinitely on-hold).

There is best way to completely suppress the Student Syndrome from any project,
because it is an innate human habit. However, the Project Manager can keep it in check
by:

 Constantly communicating with the project team about their tasks and giving
feedback.
 Constantly communicating with the stakeholders about the progress of the
project and requesting a feedback.
 Keeping the slackers in the team under the radar, raising up concerns when too
much time has gone by with too little work achieved.
 Breaking down tasks into smaller, more manageable tasks in the project
schedule. The time taken to detect the Student Syndrome is usually equal or less
than the size of a task. If the affected task is allocated 3 months in the project
schedule, then it might take up to 3 months to discover the problem, however, when
the task is only allocated a week, then the maximum time it takes to detect the
problem is a week. Note that very short tasks can make the schedule less
manageable and can create more overhead on the Project Manager.

Proactive (as opposed to reactive) project management is key to keeping the Student
Syndrome in check, and to reducing its effect to a tolerable level.

Case Study 4

Questions:

 Can this situation work? What happens if an employee as a technical question? Can he
go to his line manager?
 Should the employees return to their former line managers at project completion?
 What are the authority/responsibility problems with this structure? What are the long-
term implications?

Answers:

-I believe that the situation could work, although the structure is a bit complex.
Employees also have a dual-reporting relationship. When an employee has a question,
she should ask the project engineer. The line manager may not be able to entertain any
inquiries regarding technical stuffs.

-The employee could return to the former line manager after the completion of the
project. The matrix structure only intended to complete a specific project.

-A drawbacks of this structure are: dual or multiple reporting relationship which

violates unity of command principle, complexity, and potential conflicts. A long-term
problem, conflict could happen if there is communication problem among team
members, which are hinder by the structure itself.