Pm600 1103 a-02-schwappach-loren-p1-t3

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Roles and Qualifications of the Project Manager Presented by: Loren Karl Schwappach Colorado Technical University PM600-1103A-02-P1-T3 : Leadership and Ethical Decision-Making For: Professor David Bowers Hello everyone. If you have not met me yet, my name is Loren Karl Schwappach. As part of HLR Inc.’s information technology (IT) department, I have been assigned to lead as project manager for the largest project that has ever been undertaken by HLR, Inc. This project will impact many aspects of the organization and will have significant cost and time constraints. The project must be completed within the next 18 months and will involve people at headquarters, as well as two remote sites, one of which is located in a foreign country. Since past IT projects have not been completed within budget or time constraints the CIO of HLR Inc. has provided his full support towards ensuring this project’s success. Staff resources to complete this project have been authorized by the CIO for the following major business units: sales, product fulfillment, customer service, billing, and marketing. A few of the problems that are expected to impact this project that will need addressed are the different and incompatible information systems and manual processes used throughout the major business units, a lack of experienced and skilled human resources available for successful project completion, and a general lack and limited knowledge in regards to the requirements of project management and the role and importance of the project manager. 1

Transcript of Pm600 1103 a-02-schwappach-loren-p1-t3

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Roles and Qualifications of the Project Manager

Presented by: Loren Karl Schwappach

Colorado Technical University

PM600-1103A-02-P1-T3 : Leadership and Ethical Decision-Making

For: Professor David Bowers

Hello everyone. If you have not met me yet, my name is Loren Karl Schwappach.

As part of HLR Inc.’s information technology (IT) department, I have been assigned to lead as project manager for the largest project that has ever been undertaken by HLR, Inc.

This project will impact many aspects of the organization and will have significant cost and time constraints. The project must be completed within the next 18 months and will involve people at headquarters, as well as two remote sites, one of which is located in a foreign country.

Since past IT projects have not been completed within budget or time constraints the CIO of HLR Inc. has provided his full support towards ensuring this project’s success.

Staff resources to complete this project have been authorized by the CIO for the following major business units: sales, product fulfillment, customer service, billing, and marketing.

A few of the problems that are expected to impact this project that will need addressed are the different and incompatible information systems and manual processes used throughout the major business units, a lack of experienced and skilled human resources available for successful project completion, and a general lack and limited knowledge in regards to the requirements of project management and the role and importance of the project manager.

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This briefing has been created to offer a brief insight into the project management process while demonstrating the importance of assigning a dedicated project manager to ensure project success.

This briefing will cover project management concepts to include what a project is, the parts of a projects life cycle, the process groups associated with a project, the benefits of using project management, the roles and responsibilities of the project manager, and the skill requirements necessary for the project manager.

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In order to begin explaining the project management process and importance and requirements necessary for a project manager I first need to explain what a project is.

A large majority of individuals view a project as a large number of selected tasks required to complete a particular goal. By using this broad, unrestricted criteria, many things you accomplish each and every day could easily be see as projects. However, this is not often or usually the case. (What is a, 2001, pg. 1, para. 4)

True projects will have common characteristics separating them from the mundane day to day tasks you might first consider as projects. These projects tend to have unambiguous, well established objectives, include a lifespan, usually tend to be one-time and/or first-time efforts, consume resources, and consist of explicit requirements such as performance, cost, and time. (What is a, 2001, pg. 2, para. 3)

The Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK) explains that a project is a non-permanent venture which is carried out in order to generate a distinctive product, service, or result. (A Guide to, 2001, pg. 5)

The non-permanent nature of a project specifies it has a definite beginning and logical end which is reached when objectives have been accomplished or once the project is terminated.

“Project management is the application of knowledge, skills, tools, and techniques to project activities to meet project requirements” (A Guide to, 2001, pg. 6) The project manager is responsible for the project as well as the results. This is why a project manager requires the full support from all project stakeholders and the project team.

Projects can involve as little as ten thousand dollars and only one member or millions of dollars and hundreds of members. The latter is why an understanding and methodology to project management is so incredibly essential.

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Projects and as well as project management live in an atmosphere that is more broad than the project on its own. The project manager, stakeholders, and project team must have a clear picture of the broad factors involved in a projects lifespan to ensure that the tasks accomplished are in good alignment with the strategic and tactical goals of the business and managed in relation to established practices. (A Guide to, 2008, pg. 15)

Projects can be expensive in terms of both time and money. (Foote, 1995, para. 1) Careful consideration and planning in the beginning where cost and resource utilization are minimal can help in avoiding costly and disastrous mistakes.

The project’s life cycle is an assortment of project phases whose name and number are set based upon the needs of the organization and resource availability involved for each stage of the project. Although every project must have a start and end date the activities and deliverables tend to vary within the project phases. The life cycle provides a frame workfor managing the project regardless of the work that is required to be accomplished. (A Guide to, 2008, pg. 15)

All projects can be mapped to the life cycle structure of starting the project, organizing and preparing, carrying out tasks, and closing the project regardless of size and complexity involved. (A Guide to, 2008, pg. 16)

Other authors have illustrated this basic life cycle to incorporate the phases of conceptual, planning, testing, implementation, and closure instead of those mentioned in the PMBOK fourth edition guide. (Kerzner, 2009, pg. 68) The PMBOK structure is more simplistic and works better for service type projects.

Regular project life cycles incorporate the following characteristics. At the start of the project cost and resource utilization are low, they peak as the work is accomplished and drop rapidly at the projects conclusion. Risks, uncertainty, and stakeholder influence are the greatest during the projects beginning and decrease during the projects life span. Finally, the ability to influence the projects direction and final results with minimal cost are greatest during the beginning of the project and decreases during the projects lifespan.

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Managing a project consists of the execution of well defined activities required for the completion of project objectives. (Babou, 2008, para. 1)

A process is a set of interrelated actions and / or activities performed in order to realize a predefined service, product, or result. Every process is identified by its inputs, tools and usable techniques, and resulting outputs. (A guide to, 2008, pg. 37) The project manager must consider and utilize all available process assets and environmental factors for the creation and management of each process.

There are five project management process groups defined by the PMBOK, they are initiation, planning and design, executing, monitoring and controlling, and closing. These five groups have obvious dependencies and are usually carried out in the same sequence for every project. They processes in the process groups however will have various interactions within the groups and among other groups and tend to follow varying sets of logical order based on the project. (A guide to, 2008, pg. 41)

Process groups are not project phases however and are usually repeated for each phase or subproject. (A guide to, 2008, pg. 41)

As an example imagine a project with several unique levels of execution phases. At the end of each phase you may end up repeating the five process groups for the next phase or you may end up staying in a phase while lopping between process groups (in conditions where you need to re-plan/design, re-execute, and re-monitor several times prior to leaving a phase.

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The initiating process group contains processes designed to define a new project, subproject, or phase of an existing project through obtaining authorization to begin each phase. The main processes of the initiating group as defined by the PMBOK are to develop the project charter and identify stakeholders. (A Guide to, 2008, pg.43)

The planning process group contains processes needed to establish the projects scope, smooth and refine objectives and identify courses of action necessary to complete project objectives. This group contains the following processes: develop project management plan, collect requirements, define scope, create WBS, define activities, sequence activities, estimate activity resources, estimate activity durations, develop schedule, estimate costs, determine budget, plan quality, develop human resource plan, plan communications, plan risk management, identify risks, perform quantitative risk analysis, plan risk responses, and plan procurements. (A Guide to, 2008, pg.43)

The executing process group contains the processes used to perform and complete work as outlined by the project management plan and to satisfy project specifications. This group contains the following processes: direct and manageproject execution, perform quality assurance, acquire project team, develop project team, manage project team, distribute information, manage stakeholder expectations, and conduct procurements. (A Guide to, 2008, pg.43)

The monitoring and control process group contains the processes utilized in tracking, reviewing, and regulating the performance and progress of the project, identifying areas for change, and initiating changes. This group contains the following processes: monitor and control project work, perform integrated change control, verify scope, control scope, control schedule, control costs, perform quality control, report performance, monitor and control risks, and administer procurements. (A Guide to, 2008, pg.43)

Finally, the closing process group contains the processes for finalizing activities across all process groups. This group contains the following processes: close project or phase, and close procurements. (A Guide to, 2008, pg.43)

As mentioned in the last slide each of these processes is defined by inputs, tools and techniques available, and outputs. The PMBOK is a very useful tool for breaking out these inputs, outputs, and available tools to assist in using theprocess.

With over forty commonly repeated and reused processes available to manage each phase of a large project the project manager and project management team have an incredibly diverse workload requiring a vast set of tools and knowledge.

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It has been repeatedly proven that there are many clear–cut benefits when applying project management techniques to a companies overall business strategy.

Strategic project management can create the capability for an organization to supply products and services with reduced delivery costs through the use of well thought-out project management methodology by preventing excessive costs without thorough consideration. (Egeland, 2010, para. 4)

Strategic project management typically allows businesses to deliver products or services more efficiently to the market than competitors due to the continuous process monitoring and resource efficiency it creates. (Egeland, 2010, para. 5)

Strategic project management provides a focus advantage streamlining products or services to the clients needs provided through the constant information updates. (Egeland, 2010, para. 6)

Strategic project management allows for increased production of quality deliverables by including structured testing phases and quality control measures. (Egeland, 2010, para. 7)

Strategic project management gains the advantage of incorporating customer participation and communication and allows for businesses to better accommodate and understand customer requirements. (Egeland, 2010, para. 8)

Strategic project management allows for improved methodologies and increased capability in predicting future project needs and concerns. (Kerzner, 2009, pg. 4) It also allows for improved risk management and enables managers to make more informed decisions and cost predictions. (Mulcahy, 2002, pg. 3, para. 4)

Strategic project management allows for early problem identification (Kerzner, 2009, pg. 4)

Finally, strategic project management is a promoter of teamwork and increased communication across departments in an organization.

With all of these benefits it is hard to imagine why anyone would ever choose not to practice strategic project management.

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The PMBOK defines a project manager as “The person assigned by the performing organization to achieve the project objectives” (A Guide to, 2008, pg. 444)

The project manager is the ultimate person responsible for the successful completion of a project within specified quality performance requirements, time and schedule constraints, scope and budget constraints, and so that the end customer is satisfied. The project manager is also the leader of the project management team and is responsible for managing the efforts and performance of the team.

The PMBOK specifies that project managers should be knowledgeable about project management (a wide grasp of the areas involved in the project is also a useful aid), be consistently high performers, and have the ability to guide the project team while achieving project objectives. (A Guide to, 2008, pg. 13).

As the person responsible for the success of the project, the project manager is given sole responsibility and control of all aspects of the project including creating the project management plan and related plans, ensuring the project stays on track (within schedule and budget), identifying, monitoring, and responding to risk, and generating correct and timely reporting of metrics. (A Guide to, 2008, pg. 26)

Successful project managers utilize several useful techniques in order to deal with their often dual responsibilities and ensure project success. Some of these techniques include, understanding the role of the stakeholders while effectively communicating and influencing the stakeholders in order to maintain project support, strategic planning followed by efficient and decisive actions, managing the project rather than becoming managed by the project, and keeping their eyes focused on the finish line.

The project manager has several roles and responsibilities. Some of the project managers roles include the role of a planner, communicator, implementer, integrator, evaluator, manager, and leader.

The integrator role of a project manager includes the requirement that the project manager can integrate necessary activities needed to develop, execute, and adapt the project plan. (Kerzner, 2009, pg. 12)

The role of a good communicator is essential for any project manager and demand that the project manager maintains an interpersonal role, informational role, and decisional role.

The project managers interpersonal means that the project manager must be an honest, capable, dependable, personable and effective leader. The project manager is responsible for dealing successfully with people from diverse backgrounds and experiences, developing an environment of team unity, resolving team disagreements, focusing team members towards milestones, motivating team members toward reaching goals, and constructing positive relationships with stakeholders and the project team members.

The project managers informational role requires that the project manager be able to coordinate and lead team meetings, providecritical feedback on project results, phases, problems encountered, and quality of deliverables.

The project managers informational role requires that the project manager be proficient at using his expertise to make sound judgments without alienating others through the decisions made.

Finally the white page Competencies for Project Managers (Wourms, 2002) states that project manager should also be motivators, good communicators, be able to talk the talk, understand and follow standard project management methodology, be able to coach the project team, and have an active, wide and diverse grasp of technological understanding (essential for IT project managers). (Wourms, 2002)

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A project manager should have the following set of skills in order to successfully bring a project to fruition. The project manager should have a project related technical background and experience in project management and be capable of successfully utilizing the PMBOK guide for practicing solid project management methodology. (Kerzner, 2009, pg. 149)

The project manager should have the talent for planning, organizing and delegating project scheduling, planning, meeting, and teaching sessions.

The project manager should have good interpersonal skills and maintain a healthy relationship with senior management and leadership.

The project manager should be well diversified and have multiple disciplined experience in areas such as marketing and engineering.

The project manager must be a leader, team builder, and motivator.

The project manager should be an excellent communicator with good listening skills and be able to talk the talk.

The project manager will perform hours of analysis and streamlining of project resources so he/she should have good systems analysis and risk management skills.

The project manager needs to be flexible and yet persistent in order to ensure the projects success.

According to the article What Makes a Good Project Manager (Bigelow, 2000), successful project managers display the following skill sets. Successful project managers have “love of their work … and embracing the challenges, clear vision … and communicating this vision, strong team building skills…and setting positive tones, structure and alignment…creating the environment and direction, strong interpersonal skills…listening to and leading their teams, discipline…completing each phase of the project properly, and communication skills…knowing when and to whom to communicate” (Bigelow, 2000, pg. 1)

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Today we covered:

The Meaning of a Project and Project Management

The Parts of the Project Life Cycle

The Processes Associated with Project Management

The Benefits of Project Management

The Roles and Responsibilities of the Project Manager

The Skills Required of the Project Manager

Does anyone have any questions?

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Kerzner, H. (2009). Project Management - A Systems Approach to Planning, Scheduling and Controlling. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons.

A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (4th ed.). (2008). Newtown Square, PA: Project Management Institute, Inc.

What is a Project and when is a Project Manager needed?.(2001). Comprehensive Consulting Solutions, Inc., Retrieved July 13, 2011, from http://www.comp-soln.com/PM1_whitepaper.pdf

Foote, K. (1995). “Project Planning and Lifecycle”. Retrieved July 13, 2011, from http://www.colorado.edu/geography/gcraft/notes/lifecycle/lifecycl_f.html

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Babou, S.(2008). “Project Management Processes & Process Groups”. Leadership Champions, Retrieved July 13, 2011, from http://leadershipchamps.wordpress.com/2008/03/03/project-management-process-groups/

Mulcahy, R. (2002). The Organizational Benefits of Project Management. RMC Project Management, Inc., Retrieved July 13, 2011, from http://swqualitymentors.com/Documents/Org%20Benefits%20of%20Proj%20Mgt.pdf

Egeland, B. (2010). “Strategic Organizational Benefits of Project Management”. Project Management Tips, Retrieved July 13, 2011, from http://pmtips.net/strategic-organizational-benefits-project-management/

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Wourms, B. (2002). Competencies of IT Project Managers Art, science, leadership, and managership combined . PM Solutions, Retrieved July 13, 2011, from http://www.pmsolutions.com/uploads/file/Expert%20Series%20-%20Competencies%20of%20IT%20Project%20Managers.pdf

Bigelow, D. (2000). What Makes a Good Project Manager. PM Soulutions, Retrieved July 13, 2011, from http://www.pmsolutions.com/uploads/pdfs/good_pm.pdf

[Untitled illustration of colored people holding hands in a circle]. Retrieved July 13, 2011, from: http://www.egiconsulting.com/Portals/0/Images/egi-consulting-project-management.jpg

23.com/images/project-lifecycle-v2.jpg

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[Untitled illustration project management puzzle]. Retrieved July 13, 2011, from: http://projectmanagement-software.info/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/free-online-project-management-software.gif

[Untitled illustration of project life cycle]. Retrieved July 13, 2011, from: http://www.method1

[Untitled illustration of process group interactions]. Retrieved July 13, 2011, from: http://www.delawareediscovery.com/uploads/image/Project_Management_(phases).png

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Babou, S. (2008) [ITTO Mind Map]. Retrieved July 13, 2011, from: http://leadershipchamps.files.wordpress.com/2009/10/close-project-or-phase.jpg

[Untitled illustration of two men reaching out]. Retrieved July 13, 2011, from: http://pmtips.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/business-strategy.jpg

[Untitled illustration of a man juggling three colored balls]. Retrieved July 13, 2011, from: http://www.platinum-cpd.com/pmforhr.html

[Untitled image of a man shouting through a cone]. Retrieved July 13, 2011, from: http://www.goalkeeper.rs/public/images/blog/3.jpg

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