Week 2
A project manager should possess various project management skills; they include communication, coping skills, team building skills, negotiation skills, planning, and organizational skills and risk management. A project manager’s effective communication skills are usually displayed through his capacity to listen actively, ask questions, provide feedback, be concise and clear in his speech, to use the appropriate non-verbal cues during communication, and through his ability to develop trust and rapport amid his employees. Coping skills incorporate aspects such as persistence, flexibility, creativity, and patience (Barlow et al., 2016).
Team building skills include motivation and empathy. During negotiations, a project manager should demonstrate his proficiency in problem analysis, various preparation approaches such as setting goals for the negotiation process, active listening, verbal communication, interpersonal skills, decision making, emotional control, problem-solving, and upholding the company’s ethics and ensuring the reliability of the entire process (Barlow et al ., 2016). Problem-solving skills requires one to demonstrate aspects such as creativity, proficiency in research, teamwork, emotional intelligence, the ability to manage risks and employ effective decision-making approaches. A project managers planning and organizational skills may be demonstrated through his capacity to effectively manage his time and meet deadlines, scheduling and delegating resources and tasks, decision-making, coordinating events, and physical organization, for instance, office management, filing, and record keeping. The skills for effective risk management include analytical skills, technical skills, strategic thinking, and the capacity to be detail oriented and communicate effectively.
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Excellent leadership involves establishing a sense of direction within the company through developing a vision for the company’s future and the needed approaches to achieve the set vision and aligning a company’s employees by communicating the company’s vision through actions and words (Zuo et al ., 2018). Leading also involves motivating and empowering employees to overcome resource, bureaucratic, and political barriers to change. A leader’s effective management skills foster the implementation of effective communication strategies within the organization. Secondly, effective project management skills enhance a manager’s ability to motivate and encourage employees within the organization. Thirdly, the management skills mentioned above such as problem-solving skills, and negotiation skills, fosters a manager’s capacity to offer assistance and guidance during negotiations and resolving disputes. Fourthly, management skills such as decision-making skills enhance the ability of a manager to deliver objective judgments during a compromising situation (Lester, 2013). Lastly, effective management skills promote the effective delegation of tasks, proper time management, and physical organization within the company.
A project manager is usually tasked with various duties in project context and processes. A project manager is usually tasked with the duty of defining the project’s scope, identifying a project’s stakeholders, escalation procedures, and decision-makers, developing a comprehensive task list, estimate time requirements, establishing a project management’s flow chart, and identifying the required resources and budget for the project. Moreover, a project manager usually evaluates the requirements of the project, distinguishes and evaluates risks and develops a contingency plan, identifies interdependencies in the project, secures the required resources (Zuo et al., 2018). A project manager also performs duties such as identifying and tracking important milestones, participating in project phase reviews, managing the process of change control and reporting the status of a particular project. Therefore, excellent project management skills, leadership, and awareness of the context and processes of the project enable project managers to effectively guide other employs at different levels of the organization structure, to allow smooth flow of work and success of organization's projects.
References
Barlow, A., Barlow, C. G., Boddam-Whetham, L., & Robinson, B. (2016). A rapid assessment of the current status of project management skills in the conservation sector. Journal for Nature Conservation , 34, 126–132.
Lester, A. (2013). Project Management, Planning, and Control . Elsevier Science: Butterworth-Heinemann.
Zuo, J., Zhao, X., Nguyen, T., & Gao, S. (2018). Soft skills of construction project management professionals and project success factors. Engineering Construction & Architectural Management , 25(3), 425–442.
Week 3
Project integration management harmonizes or coordinates all features of a project to ensure the project’s smooth operation. The initial process is the development of a project charter. This document which formally approves a project and presents the manager of the project with the authorization to utilize the company’s resources in various project operations; it consists of the desired deliverables and the goals of the project. The inputs under this entity include the business case, the project's statement of work, agreements, enterprise environmental elements, and the company’s process assets (Kostalova, Bednarikova & Patak, 2018) The process’ outputs include project justification, measurable objectives of the projects, constraints and assumptions, high-level requirements, high-level boundaries and descriptions of the project, stakeholder listing, sponsor’s name, and authority, project authorization requirements, milestones, and summary budget, and the assigned project manager.
The second procedure is the development of a project management plan. This involves delineating, integrating, preparing, and coordinating all subsidiary stratagem (Wang et al ., 2008). A project management stratagem is a crucial documentation that delineates the foundation of all project work. Inputs under this entity include project charter, baselines, and all subsidiary plans, organization process assets, and Enterprise Environmental Aspects. Outputs under this entity include scope baseline, schedule baseline, scope management scheme, cost baseline, cost management scheme, communication stratagem, risk management stratagem, methodologies, process improvement plans, procurement plans, and quality management plans.
The third procedure is to direct and oversee or control project operations. This is aimed at achieving the objectives of the project. The entity incorporates aspects such as creating project deliverables, executing operations aimed at accomplishing the requirements, training and managing project team members, establishing and managing communication channels, generating project data, for instance, quality and technical progress. The entity also demands the review of the effects of all changes in the project and the implementation of the authorized changes due to the following reasons: Preventive action, corrective action, and defect repair (Wang et al., 2008). The entity’s inputs include project management plans, authorized change requests, organizational process assets, and the company’s environmental factors. The entity’s outputs include updated project management plans and the sequel of the implemented changes, deliverables, project documentation updates, change requests, and work performance information.
The fourth step is to control and monitor project work and it involves evaluating or reviewing, tracking, and reporting the project’s progress to achieve the performance objectives. Preventive and corrective actions are usually employed to control or manage the performance of the project and to prevent or solve the deviation amid the project plan and project results. Some of the activities that take place under this entity include comparing the project’s real performance against the initial project management stratagem, evaluating performance to discern the need for a preventive or corrective measure, analyzing, tracking, and monitoring project risks, maintaining timely and accurate data concerning the deliverables of the project, providing schedule and cost forecasts, and monitoring the implementation of the authorized changes whenever they occur (Wang et al., 2008). Inputs under this entity include project management schedule (baselines and subsidiary plans), schedule forecasts, sanctioned change appeals, cost forecasts, data on work performance, organizational procedure assets, and business’ environmental factors. The entity’s outputs include reports in work performance, change requests, updates on the project management stratagem, and project documentation updates.
The fifth procedure is to execute an integrated or coordinated change control. It incorporates the reviewing of all the requests for change, rejecting or authorizing changes, and managing changes in the project management scheme, project documentation, organizational procedure assets, and deliverables. The Change Control Board/project manager/sponsor is responsible for rejecting or authorizing change requests. The CCB’s duties are usually delineated in the change control and configuration control process. Configuration control relates to the process of identifying and documenting the physical and functional attributes of a service, product, or outcome. Change control is a procedure that deals with the baseline, deliverables, or project documents’ changes (Vanhoucke, 2014). Inputs under this entity include project management plans, reports on work performance, change requests, organizational process assets, and business’ environmental factors. The outputs include rejected or approved change requests, updates on the project management plans, project documentation updates, and change logo.
The final procedure is the close project which entails the procedure of finalizing all operations in all project management procedure groupings to terminate the phase or project formally (Vanhoucke, 2014). Activities under this entity include providing lessons learned, the official cessation of the project’s operations, and the release of the company’s resources to proceed with other endeavors. The evaluation of the project’s performance should be initiated following the project’s termination. Feedback should also be acquired from the client or sponsor and the project management team. Inputs under this entity include a project management scheme, organizational procedure assets, and accepted deliverables. The entity’s outputs are a result transition or final services or product, and the updates on organizational procedure assets.
References
Kostalova, J., Bednarikova, M., & Patak, M. (2018). Project Management Education in Metallurgical Companies in the Czech Republic. Business, Management & Education / Verslas, Vadyba Ir Studijos, 16 (1), 54–64.
Vanhoucke, M. (2014). Integrated project management and control: First comes the theory, then the practice . Cham, New York: Springer.
Wang, E., Ju, P., Jiang, J. J., & Klein, G. (2008). The effects of change control and management review on software flexibility and project performance . Information & Management , 45 (7), 438–443.
Week 4
Mechanisms used in controlling the scope of a project include collecting requirements, developing a WBS (Work Breakdown Structure), and defining deliverables (Wang et al., 2008). Collecting requirements entail delineating and documenting the elements and functions of a project that ought to be completed to ensure the completion or success of the project. The project team often develops a requirements traceability matrix, a requirements management plan, and the stakeholders’ requirements document as outputs of the procedure of collecting requirements. Requirements include features such as color, and dimensions or measurements. Developing a WBS entails breaking down the primary deliverables of a project into small elements that are highly manageable. The key outputs include project documents updates, scope baseline, WBS dictionary, and a WBS structure. WBS often defines the project scope and divides work into elements that can be estimated, scheduled, controlled, and easily monitored.
WBS creation includes aspects such as listing the outputs of the projects, identifying the milestones and deliverables of each task, and distinguishing the activities necessary to generate outputs. Defining deliverables involves delineating the aspects the project team members produce for the specific project (Lester, 2013). Deliverables are particular items, measurable outcomes, or tangible outcomes which should be produced to finish a project phase or particular project; they include blueprint, budget, schedule, plan, or intermediate documentation. One primary similarity amid collecting requirements, developing a WBS (Work Breakdown Structure), and defining deliverables include the fact that they all define the scope of a particular project. One key difference among the mechanisms mentioned above is based on the fact that each mechanism defines different variables which include requirements, deliverables, and labor.
Requirements planning relates to the iterative set of operations or activities that aid in ensuring that the elicitation, refinement, changes, and documentation of requirements handled adequately during a lifecycle with the aim of quality and client satisfaction (Papinniemi, Hannola & Maletz, 2014). In strategic planning requirements planning enhances the definition and quantification of business requirements which are used to correlate the strategy to the change portfolio, and delineate the scope of a program and its success criteria. In a project stakeholder and business requirements are used to delineate the scope of a project and its criteria for success. Additionally, stakeholder requirements and business requirements are used to elucidate a project’s continuous improvement, scope, and criteria for success.
Some of the benefits of requirements planning include the significant reduction in costs, its capacity to improve the quality of a particular project, and the significant reduction in the time taken to complete a particular project (Papinniemi, Hannola & Maletz, 2014). Additionally, requirements planning enhances a significant reduction in the probability of risk incidences. Requirements planning also enhances the optimal utilization of resources. Moreover, it fosters the one’s capacity to business data for evaluation and better planning. Lastly, it fosters the capacity of an organization to effectively manage its project scope. Some of the disadvantages of requirements planning include the difficulties one is likely to experience when gathering data using the conversational procedures in requirement elicitation. Secondly, the observation procedures in requirements planning may be time-consuming due to the need for sensitivity and responsiveness to the physical environment. Lastly, the analytical procedures in requirements planning often require empirical information, expert’s opinions, or documentation; without these elements, one may encounter difficulties in eliciting proper requirements.
References
Lester, A. (2013). Project Management, Planning, and Control . Elsevier Science: Butterworth-Heinemann.
Papinniemi, J., Hannola, L., & Maletz, M. (2014). Challenges in integrating requirements management with PLM . International Journal of Production Research , 52(15), 4412–4423.
Wang, E., Ju, P., Jiang, J. J., & Klein, G. (2008). The effects of change control and management review on software flexibility and project performance . Information & Management , 45(7), 438–443.
