Should Project Managers Behave Like Prima Donnas - Article Example

SHOULD PROJECT MANAGERS BEHAVE LIKE PRIMA DONNAS? INTRODUCTION This article addresses the question: Should Project Managers behave like Prima Donnas? The question posed is about the role of the project manager and the ways in which he or she steers the project towards successful completion. The thesis statement is about the point that covers a broad range of topics and deals with a set of questions that include how much and how far should the project manager involve himself or herself and the extent to which the project manager has to go in meeting stakeholder expectations and keeping the team intact. It has been said that Project Management is the art of balancing competing demands and determining appropriate interventions whenever necessary. The balancing act is about taking the different stakeholder requirements together and then ensuring that everything falls together for the common purpose of meeting the project deliverables. This then is the bottom-line guideline for project managers. The practice of management for the express purpose of delivering customer delight and stakeholder value. This paper looks at the components of project management and the way in which the project manager has to ensure that conflicting and competing demands on his or her time and bandwidth are managed to ensure optimal success for the project. I answer the question of whether the project manager must be a Prima Donna by referring to the situational and contextual aspects of project management. The contention of this author is that project managers and the art of project management is highly contextual and situation dependant that theory can only point the way and it is up to the individual to make the decisions and tread the path accordingly. Real world scenarios often have a way of surprising the most experienced project manager and hence theory can only help to a point in making decisions that affect real people. Thus, one way of looking at the question is that project managers have to combine the science of project management with the art of people and process management to achieve optimal results. Project Management combines statistics and people skills in equal measure and it is incumbent upon the project manager to plan their strategies accordingly. PROJECT MANAGEMENT According to the PMBOK 3rd edition, A project is defined as a “temporary endeavour with a beginning and an end and it must be used to create a unique product, service or result”. Further, it is progressively elaborated. What this definition of a project means is that projects are those activities that cannot go on indefinitely and must have a defined purpose. A project is an activity to meet the creation of a unique product or service and thus activities that are undertaken to accomplish routine activities cannot be considered projects. For instance, if your project is less than three months old and has fewer than 20 people working on it, you may not be working in what is called a project according to the definition of the term. It has to be remembered that the term temporary does not apply to the result or service that is generated by the project. The project may be finite but not the result. For instance, a project to build a monument would be of fixed duration whereas the result that is the monument may be for an indefinite period in time. A project is an activity to create something unique. Of course, many of the office buildings that are built are similar in many respects but each individual facility is unique in its own way. Finally, a project must be progressively elaborated. This means that the project progresses in steps and continues by increments. This also means that the definition of the project is refined at each step and ultimately the purpose of the progress is enunciated. This means that a project is first defined initially and then as the project progresses, the definition is revisited and more clarity is added to the scope of the project as well as the underlying assumptions about the project. As the name implies Project Management is all about managing expectations of the clients and other stakeholders in ways that would enhance the value for the project as well as for the organization. COMPONENTS OF PROJECT MANAGEMENT There are several components of project management that encompass the spectrum of project management. Right from the initial setting up of the project to the closure, each phase brings a new set of challenges and components to the art of project management. Specifically, the project manager has to manage the team and take bottom-line responsibility for the deliverables along with managing the stakeholders of the project. If we take each of these components individually, the initial setting up of the project involves establishing procedures and processes for subsequent phases and defining the roles of the team members. In organisations that lay emphasis on processes, this phase is crucial to the success of the project. There are many organisations that subscribe to the SEI –CMM guidelines on processes and these organisations take measures to ensure that they are in tune with the guidelines. PROJECT MANAGER’S ROLE After the preliminary introduction of the topic related to Project Management and the components for the same, it is now time to look at the role of the Project Manager. If we take the thesis statement of this paper, the essential question remains about what is the kind of role that the Project Manager has to play. Should he or she behave as Prima Donnas or relegate themselves to the background and intervene as and when required. There has been much debate about what the Project Manager can or cannot do. And the argument is also centred around on whether to take a proactive or a subdued approach towards the issues surrounding the management of the project. The proactive approach favours an interventionist and hands on approach that includes intervening in day to day affairs of the project. This approach is manifested in the IT industry where the Project Manager is called upon to involve themselves in the technical aspects of the project that would include participating in design, coding and other activities. This phenomenon cannot be said to be restricted to the IT industry alone as there are several instances in the other sectors where the Project Manager has to get their hands dirty, literally and metaphorically. There are organisations that define the role of the project manager clearly and delineate the roles and responsibilities. This usually happens in Matrix organisations where the structure of the organisation is such that there is lot of emphasis on clarity of the role. Thus, after a review of the literature, it would seem that there is no single answer to the question of whether the project manager has to be at the centre of the universe or like a conductor directing the symphony. STAKEHOLDER MANAGEMENT In this section, we look at the specifics of managing the stakeholders for the project. Any project has multiple stakeholders that need to be taken care. A stakeholder is someone who has either invested in the project and derives value from the outcome or a third party who contributes to the success and conversely to the failure of the project. The first task before the Project Manager is to ensure that the stakeholders are clearly identified and then their roles and responsibilities demarcated and delineated. The task of identifying the stakeholders assumes importance as there should not be any confusion over who is a stakeholder and who is not. For instance, an IT project would have the stakeholders listed right from the systems and the network administrators to the client and the project sponsor. But, there might be other stakeholders like the staffing team who flit in and out of the project phases as and when they are required. Thus, the need is to establish boundaries and identify the roles of the different stakeholders appropriately. Apart from this, the project manager must make it a point to ensure that stakeholders are categorised according to their importance and relevance to the project and the start of each phase accordingly. Stakeholder satisfaction should be the bottom-line goal towards which the project managers must work to. Customer satisfaction and customer delight are some of the phrases that are used as an adjunct to good project management and its practice. Customer delight is achieved when one measures up to the needs of the customer and takes appropriate steps to ensure that they are met. GOALS, PRIORITIES AND PROCESSES Project management is the art of managing the project and its deliverables with a view to produce finished products or service. There are many ways in which a project can be carried out and the way in which it is executed is project management. Project management includes: identifying requirements, establishing clear and achievable objectives, balancing the competing demands from the different stakeholders and ensuring that a commonality of purpose is achieved. Without a scientific approach to the task of managing the projects and achieving objectives, it would be very difficult for the organizations to successfully execute the projects within the constraints of time, scope and quality and deliver the required result. In other words, there has to be a framework and a defined way of doing things to ensure that there is a structure to the art of project management. Thus, project management is about creating structure and managing the project commitments and the delivery of agreed upon results. By using the methods of project management as described in the PMBOK and allied technical journals, organizations can seek to achieve control over the project environment and ensure that the project deliverables are being managed. Managers face what is known as the “triple constraint”. This is the competing demands of time, scope and quality upon the project manager’s list of things to do and how well the project manager manages these constraints goes a long way in determining the success of the project. Without the use of Project Management, managers and organizations would find themselves facing an unpredictable and chaotic environment over which they have little control. Thus, Project Management is both necessary and essential to the success of the project, BEHAVIORAL MODELS There are several models of behaviour that the project manager can draw upon in his or her work. These include Maslow’s need hierarchy theory, Herzberg’s Hygiene theory and McGregor’s theory X and theory Y as applied to project management. All these behavioural models point to the ability of the project manager to motivate the people in the team towards the common goal of ensuring the success of the project. Maslow’s need hierarchy theory postulates that people do not work for money or security alone. According to this theory, once a person fulfils the basic needs of money and security, he or she tends to seek actualization of their potential and engage in what he called “self-actualization”. Thus, this theory holds that once an individual reaches a certain stage in life or a position, the pay and other benefits matter less to him or her than the quality of the work that they are doing. When we apply this theory to the real world issues of management, we find that the Project Manager has to ensure that he or she does not concentrate on raising the perks alone to achieve optimal performance from his team members but also keeps giving challenging work to the team members to fulfil their potential. In my experience and from talking to seasoned project managers, I have found that most team members take great pride in their work and hence challenging assignments are one way of motivating them. Of course, there has been much criticism of this theory in recent years and experts have pointed to several inconsistencies in this theory and application. The most notable example is that of the skyrocketing executive compensation that belies the hypothesis of Maslow’s theory. This is one clear instance of the fact that pay matters more than other variables and job satisfaction alone does not motivate people. In my opinion, it is a fact that people tend to get motivated by perks as well as promise of rewards, monetary and otherwise. So, it is up to the Project Manager to use the notion of reward judiciously without compromising quality or alienating other team members. If we take a look at Herzberg’s theory of hygiene, the factors that contribute to the success of the individual can be divided into presence and absence of hygiene factors. The definition is that the presence of good working conditions and salary are things that do not motivate people by themselves. The absence of such factors de-motivates the individual. Thus, the idea here is that hygiene factors are those that do not contribute by their presence but contribute negatively by their absence. Thus, the project manager cannot be complacent with the fact that he or she has provided optimal working conditions for the team members and expect them to perform at their full potential. The manager also needs to understand that it is his responsibility to take the lead in motivating the team members by holding regular one-one meetings and ensuring that their grievances are heard and accepted. The Theory X and Theory Y holds that people need to be supervised and told what to do (X) and people would work with little supervision and thus do not need to be told what to do (Y). These are the opposing views of the theory of motivation and behaviour. Thus these conflicting and competing views reflect human nature and model the behaviour accordingly. As we discussed, the underlying theory behind the motivation models is the approach that the project manager must take to ensure that the team members and the team as a whole is motivated enough to take action and contribute meaningfully to the project. There is nothing more troublesome than a team that is de-motivated and unable to function cohesively and as a team. Thus, the primary responsibility before the project manager is to ensure a professional approach towards people management. In many of the projects, the case is often made out against the project manager as favouring certain team members over the others. This practice leads to increased frustration among the other team members and can lead to negative results for the team. Thus, the project manager has his task cut out in terms of the way in which the team has to be structured and the guidance provided for the team. The behavioural theories essentially postulate the need for balance and in some ways address the thesis question of this paper on the extent of the role that the project manager is expected to play. The project manager cannot be too overbearing and not recede as well. Thus, as I have been arguing throughout the paper there is a need for contextual and situation dependant behaviour with appropriate action that is deemed fit taken at each instance. PROCUREMENT AND QUALITY PROCESSES The art of project management calls for an increased vigil on quality and related processes. The project manager is expected to be aware of the best practices that are used for the project and is supposed to make sure that he or she adapts them to the use of project management. One area of concern nowadays is the absence of processes in procurement and staffing. These are areas of concern not only to the project manager but also to the organisations. There is a need to balance the requirements of the fast procurement and staffing cycle with that of proper processes to be followed. There has been much debate in many organisations about the lack of quality in recruitment and procurement. These twin areas of quality and procurement have the aspect of ruining the chances of a successful project and hence the project manager has a responsibility to steer the course and ensure that quality does not suffer. There are several areas of project management that need quality control and there are several benchmarks of quality that can be used to meet these standards. For instance, many organisations use Six Sigma and SEI CMM level processes to guide them in the art of quality and meeting quality specifications. These are just one instance of how the quality framework is used to differentiate between the processes that are error free and those that need revision and rework. Sampling method prescribed by Kaizen, Six Sigma etc can be used to improve the quality of the processes that are employed by the organisations. Kaizen, in particular relates to continuous improvement, a theme that would find resonance in the uber-competitive world of today. All organisations strive for quality and to find the edge that would differentiate those from others and thus these initiatives are the ones that the project manager must look forward to and implement them diligently in the workplace. To address the issues arising out of poor procurement and staffing practices, the project manager has to be in constant touch with one important stakeholder i.e., the procurement and staffing teams and this is where the project manager is expected to show their level of competence by managing the procurement and staffing cycle. CONCLUSION We have seen how the role of the project manager is to steer the team towards the common goal of meeting the bottom line expectations and at the same time keeping the stakeholders happy and ensuring the success of the project. It is by no means considered done if the project manager abdicates his or her responsibility and at the same time if they adopt an overly aggressive approach towards the team and its issues. Thus, the project manager has to do a balancing act between the various stakeholders and contribute to the overall success of the project. The team members form the internal stakeholders for whom the benefits of working in the team must be made apparent and efforts should be made to motivate them to perform to their full potential. Some of the ways in which the team members can be motivated have been discussed in the section related to the behavioural models of management. Suffice to state that the project manager must adopt a proactive approach towards project management and the needs of the team and ensure that they go hand in hand with the overall objective of customer satisfaction and customer delight. The project manager is like the captain of a team and hence has the responsibility to guide the team and take care of externalities as well as ensure he or she contributes actively when the need arises. Thus, the twin roles of stewardship as well as participation call for greater sensitivity on the part of the project manager and a need to be perceptive of the changes taking around the organisation and the wider world to which the project relates. The modern day practice of project management comes with its own challenges and concurrent rewards and expectations. Thus, the art of stress free project management is something that each manager has to learn to practice and ensure the well being of the project as well as of them. In conclusion, the question of whether the project managers should behave as Prima Donnas need to be answered as something that is contextual and situation dependant. In the fast paced world of organisations and project management, the central role for a project manager ensures that he or she is always in the middle of action and the thick of things. Thus, the art of project management requires extraordinary patience and certain thoughtfulness towards the team and stakeholders. Any management devoid of sensitivity and lack of finesse is bound to result in failure. Sources: 1. PMBOK (3rd Ed, 2006) (Project Management Body of Knowledge) Project Management Institute. Read More