Effective Project Management
What is the significance of a Project Manager during Project
management? Project Manager play key role during the project life cycle which
runs generally from requirement collection, design, development, testing,
deployment and finally handing over to the maintenance. Of course these aspects
are covered with Initiation, Planning, Execution, Monitoring & Controlling
and Closure which are part of five process groups under PMP.
As we know these five process groups are covered with 42
processes under 9 knowledge areas. When we consider these knowledge areas, the
Project manager should balance all the constraints like scope, time, cost,
quality, risk, resources. That’s true that he/she should balance, but how? Is
it possible? Yes, why not, by having the basic four qualities. They are a
Project Manager should be good communicator, an effective Integrator, sensible
Negotiator and being Proactive. An effective project Manager should have all
these qualities. Let’s look one by one:
Communicator: PMP
recommends a Project Manager should spend 90%
of his or her time in communication. What is communication in Project
management? Of course it is a combination of soft skills as well as management
communication which is nothing but managing stakeholders. Soft skill meaning using interpersonal
skills, applying leadership skills and by being soft but firm. Managing stakeholders and distribution of
information are important processes. By providing right information to the
right people using right methodology or the technique to the right people. If a
Project Manager is carrying out these processes effectively, then 90% of the
time which is required for communication can be achieved.
Integrator: How a Project
manager can be good Integrator? By aggregating all the knowledge areas of the
project management and most important by balancing the constraints which are
mentioned above. This can be achieved by
·
Developing Work Breakdown Structure, schedule
and budget
·
Set Priorities
·
Continually reviewing and updating the Project
plan
·
Resolving conflict resolution
·
Removing roadblocks
·
Resolving customer or the client issues
·
Maintaining communication link tightly coupled
I think if a project
manager reciprocates to the above points, balancing can be achieved.
Negotiator: What is the
meaning of negotiation? Negotiation meaning making win-win situation and it is
not loose-loose or loose-win situation. In a given project the conflicts are
inevitable. It can be due to schedule, business reason, technology, and customer
or can be due to ego clashes. As an effective project Manager, he should be in
a good negotiator position to handle the situation. Other than this a project
manager has to negotiate with functional manager to get best resources in the
interest of project to make the project success. This situation comes typically
in a functional or a matrix based organisation. Because, every functional
manager will be interested in using the resources to develop the functional
aspects of his or her area than giving importance to the project. So in this
situation, if a project manager is not a good negotiator, then project may
fail. Can we know when negotiation fails?
I would say when you don’t negotiate. Yes, if you don’t negotiate you
will not get best of what you require. This rule is applicable not only in
project management as well as in our day to day life.
Proactive: How a Project
manager can be Proactive? By anticipating. But how to anticipate? By
experience, looking or learning other’s mistakes or his/her own mistakes.
Proactive leads to minimising the risk in the project. Identification of risk
is very important during the project management. When you identify a risk,
immediately you think of how to handle or to respond to it. If you respond to
it by mitigating and averting, we can say that it is proactive. Of course I can
understand a project manager can’t be always proactive. But at least reactive
mode leads to proactive. For example, there are 100 servers and all are in the
same network. One of the servers is infected by virus and is down. The reactive
mode is to apply the antivirus software and repairing it. But we know that rest
of the 99 servers will be affected. Before they catches with virus, apply the
antivirus to all of them. This becomes Proactive.
