Aims:- Managing Projects

• To give an overview of a Project Manager

Objectives:-
• Name key responsibilities of a Project
Manager
• Discuss characteristics and activities required
for a Project Manager
• Appreciate the impact of team and culture of
managing a project
• Improve critical reading skills
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 Responsibilities of a Project Manager
• Responsibility to the parent organisation
• Responsibility to the client
• Responsibility to the team members
• “Above all, the PM must never allow senior
management to be surprised”
• Being prepared to give ‘bad news’
Meredith & Mantel, 2005
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 Characteristics of a Project Manager

• Personality: able to lead and motivate.

• Willing to delegate.
• Perceptive and sceptical.
• Understands project management methods.
• Willing to take action.
• Determined and committed to winning –
failure never an option.
Lock
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 Key Activities of Project Managers

• Shaping goals and objectives

• Obtaining resources
• Building roles and structures for their team
• Establishing good communications
• Seeing the whole picture
• Moving things forwards (especially in difficult
circumstances)

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 Role and Skills of the Project Manager
• Background and experience relevant to needs of
project
• Leadership and strategic expertise for the ‘big
picture’
• Technical expertise for sound decisions
• Interpersonal competence and people skills to
champion, communicate, facilitate, motivate, and
so on
• Proven managerial ability for getting things done
Weiss & Wysocki
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 The Manager
What do you think the ‘ideal’ Project Manager
will, look or sound like?

Can you think of someone you know who

would make a good Project Manager?

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 Factors Affecting the Project
Manager’s Role and Style
• Nature of the task
• Organisational structure
• Organisational culture
• Individual motivations of the team members

Style: Cooperation ↔ Coercion

Maylor

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 Four Roles for Project Managers
• Leadership – the vision and style
• Motivation – managing expectations and rewards
• Team building – skills mix and cooperation between
members
• Communication – different aspects and different
stakeholders

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 Ten Ways Projects may Fail
1. Failure to appreciate the
impact of a multi-project
environment on single project
success
2. Irrational promises made due
to a failure to take into
account the variable nature of
task performance
3. Irrational promises made due
to a failure to take into
account the statistical nature
of project networks
4. Insufficient identification of
dependencies
5. Focus on, and active management
of, only a portion of what should
be the full project
6. Reliance on due-date and wasting
of any safety included in the
project
7. Wasting of resources through sub-
optimal utilisation
8. Wasting of the ‘best’ resources
through over-use, multi-tasking
and burn-out
9. Delivering original scope when
conditions/needs change OR
accepting changes to scope
without sufficient impact analysis
10. Multi-tasking
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 References
• Meredith, J. R., & Mantel, S. J. (2006). Project management: a managerial
approach. Hoboken, NJ, John Wiley.
• Lock, D. (2007) Project Management, 9th edn. Burlington: Gower.
• Weiss, J.W. and Wysocki, R.K. (1992). 5-phase project management: A
practical planning guide. Cambridge, MA: Perseus Books.
• Maylor, H. (2003). Project Management, 3rd ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ:
Pearson.
• Takeuchi, H. and Nonaka, I. (1986) The New New Product Development
Game. Harvard Business Review, 64, 137-146.

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