Procedures for the Project Manager - Research Paper Example

Table of Contents Introduction 2 Importance 3 Moreover, project management is important in an organization. Project managers occupy a unique position within an organization because they supervise both special and regular projects or activities of the organization. The key to the success of the project is the manager’s understanding of the knowledge and skills in a particular project. 4 Analysis 4 Synthesis/Integration 9 Trend(s) 9 There are various trends that are affecting project management. With the age of globalization, these trends have greatly modified how managers conduct strategic and project management in the enterprise. 9 Challenges 10 Application 11 Introduction Project management involves managing a certain activity, and this can be about a project at work, at school, or at home. The term project can be anything, or can even be a case study, but as a whole, it involves management and how to be able to successfully carry out a task up to the end of its schedule set up by the Project Manager or the customer, as the case maybe. Practically, no organization operates without a project or activity, and this project has to be managed by a well-trained manager, who knows how to act in situations that require immediate and precise decisions. This essay deals with procedures for the Project Manager, and other relevant aspects of project management. It also touches on project management as applied to Information Technology, in relation to the research by Jane Johansen and Sharlett Gillard. This is drawing up a particular case study for project management by focusing on the present trend in business today – the information technology. The technological revolution has placed a heavy burden on information management and therefore on project managers. “The primary aim of the project manager is for the result to satisfy the project sponsor or purchaser and all the other principal stakeholders, within the promised timescale and without using more money and other resources than those that were originally set aside or budgeted” (Lock 1). Project management can be applied to operations management, which itself is another broad topic. Productions and operations are simply linked to operations management (OM) (Shim and Siegel 2) and is the process by which goods and services are created. This can be productive processes in all kinds of organized activities such as factories, offices, supermarkets, and hospitals. Production and operations management deals with decision making related to productive processes to ensure that the resulting goods or services are produced according to specifications, in the amounts and by the schedule required, and at minimum cost (Shim and Siegel 2). Man-made projects are not new: monuments surviving from the earliest civilizations testify to the incredible achievements of our forebears and still evoke our wonder and admiration. Modern projects, for all their technological sophistication, are not necessarily greater in scale than some of those early mammoth works. Formal management organization structures have existed from early times, but these flourished in military, church and civil administrations rather than in industry. Importance Tracing back the history of project management, we can analyze the importance of project management. From the time of management scientists and industrial engineers like Elton Mayo and Frederick Winslow Taylor to Henry Ford’s production-line manufacture famous with Model T automobile, to Henry Gantt and his famous charts, we see project management present in every aspect of labour and production. This was further enhanced with the emergence of mainframe digital computers which made processing and updating of critical path networks faster and easier. (Lock 3) In the 1970s, there was a rapid growth in information technology, or IT. Industrial project management continued as before, but with more project management software available and wider recognition of the role. However, the spread of IT brought another different kind of project manager on the scene. These were the IT project managers: people who had no project planning or scheduling experience and no interest or desire to learn those methods. They possessed instead the technical and mental skills needed to lead teams developing IT projects. These IT project managers were usually senior systems analysts, but they were only few in this trade. (Lock 3) More improvement and growth were made on the computers in the 1980s. Project managers now had their own desktop computers with project management software. Graphics were greatly improved, with smaller printers available locally in the office that could produce complex charts in many colours. And from that time up to the turn of the century, practically all software suppliers recognized the need to make their products compatible with Microsoft Windows. Microsoft themselves introduced Microsoft Project into their Office suite of programs. Microsoft improved further the software and the program is now popular among students and professionals. (Lock 4) Moreover, project management is important in an organization. Project managers occupy a unique position within an organization because they supervise both special and regular projects or activities of the organization. The key to the success of the project is the manager’s understanding of the knowledge and skills in a particular project. Moreover, the study of Information Technology and IT management is as important as the project management in any organization. Therefore, this paper is very relevant to organizations. Looking at the projects of my organization, I found this to be really interesting and something worthy for me to carry along as I pursue future endeavours. Not only is the topic fruitful and important to project managers but to any member of an organization or to anyone involved in any activity because we manage or follow our managers who are leaders for that matter, and understanding the concept enables to help in the success of any work in progress. Analysis Some projects come into being gradually, and others fade out slowly, so that their precise beginning and end dates can be difficult to recognize. However, most projects have not only actual beginning and end dates but also one or more significant dates between these can be identified as key events or ‘milestones’. The period between the beginning and end of a project is usually referred to as the project life cycle. It is convenient and necessary here to introduce three key players in the project life cycle: The customer (in some projects known as the client) is the person or organization that wants to buy the project and put the end product to sue in its own business or sell (or lease) it on to a third party. The contractor is the organization principally responsible to the customer for carrying out the project work. The project manager is a person employed by the contractor (or occasionally by the customer) to plan and manage all the project activities so that the project is finished on time within budget and within its specification. (Lock 6-7) Project Life Cycle SOURCE: Project Management, Lock 8. The typical life cycle of small projects, or projects with short duration, do not involve large amounts of capital expenditure and are relatively straightforward to manage. Most authorities and writers, when they talk about the life cycle of a project, refer to the period that begins with the authorization of work on the project up to the handover of the desired product to the customer. Planning a Project In planning a project, we can save a lot of efforts by making some basic decisions before we begin to enter task or resource data. The first is to establish calendars or milestones. The project relies on some calendars that are established for each project and for some project resources. Drawing up a particular case for project management, we focus on the present trend in business today – the information technology. The technological revolution in the business world has placed a heavy burden on information management and therefore on information managers (Johansen and Gillard 91). A study on Information Technology, particularly the role of the project manager in the implementation of Information Resources Project Manager (IRPM) was conducted by Jane Johansen and Sharlett Gillard in their paper Information Resources Project Management Communication: Personal and Environmental Barriers. In their study, the authors talked of knowledge as “something more than the retrieval of sets of information: it is the task of explaining them and contextualizing them and empowering the information to change the face or workings of a corporation.” In the course of the implementation of the project, there are problems and dangers in the planning, organizing and activities – project management then is applied to see to it that the project will be successful. Organizing, planning and controlling the activities are the initial steps. The project manager has a great role to play. In Johansen and Gillard’s study, they talked of knowledge as “something more than the retrieval of sets of information: it is the task of explaining them and contextualizing them and empowering the information to change the face or workings of a corporation.” The 20th century project managers have a sophisticated role and they now find themselves revolutionizing the concept of what information and information management means to themselves and their corporations. The Information Resources Project Manager (IRPM), the program/project manager leading a multi-departmental or multi-organizational ad hoc project, is becoming the maker of meaning and can become the driver of organizational learning. Project managers have a task to help their organizations make sense of their interpretations of their environment. To flourish in this role, the IRPM must constantly be aware of the barriers to effective communications. Jane Johansen and Sharlett Gillard provide a brief theoretical review of communications barriers that serves as a checklist for the IRPM whose attention must be directed more and more heavily to audience and the very humanness of communications. Workers in the information world, those who created new languages and means of locating and storing information, must now be the messengers of the 21st century’s understanding about information: the value does not lie in the information stored but in the knowledge created from it. Knowledge, then, is more than the retrieval of sets of information: it is the task of explaining them and contextualizing them – usually the job of writers, semanticists, and semioticians – and empowering the information to change the face or workings of a corporation. (Johansen and Gillard 91) The IRPM needs particularly to gather information about the needs and concerns of individuals in the group: their status within the group, their authority, their perception of the urgency of a problem, their receptivity to ideas, their likely cooperation or resistance. According to Tuckman’s classic analysis, a group may be in the forming stage or the ‘ice-breaking’ stage, the storming stage in which the power structure is tested, the norming stage in which questions of power and authority are resolved, the performing stage which concentrates attention on solving task problems, or the adjourning stage in which a project is finished and a group may dissolve. Keeping all members in the same stage, keeping them ‘on the same page,’ increases the efficiency of the communications loop and decreases static in the coding and decoding of messages. Also, the members play certain roles, such as the shaper, the coordinator, the idea generator, the resource investigator, the monitorevaluator, the implementer, the completer, and the internal facilitator. The communications role of the IRPM is evolving and increasing as corporations’ relationships to their own information base become more sophisticated. Information resources project managers occupy a unique position within an organization because they supervise both permanent information systems staff and temporary members attached from functional and/or technical support systems. The key to the IRPMs’ success is their understanding of information and knowledge and their skill at communications. Christian Koch’s article on consulting engineering is a fascinating outlook of team and teamwork, group work, and other aspects of knowledge and information sharing. Consulting engineering relies heavily on project teamwork in producing knowledge for its professional service products. Engineering practices and knowledge areas encompass mainly civil, mechanical and electrical engineering, building physics, project and construction management. These areas are knowledge-intensive activities that require a lot of teamwork and precise and good project management. Koch’s article illustrates how teamworking occurs under continuous pressures from structural, organizational, professional, and individual sources. The organization attempts in its knowledge production to combine practical experience, formalized information, external alliances and customer demands. Koch says that “management and project teamwork are in a state of latent conflict” (Koch 277). The consulting engineering companies play a central role in knowledge production in the construction sector, and are often described as knowledge-intensive business service firms. Teamwork in project is emphasized as the all-dominating form of organization. Synthesis/Integration Trend(s) There are various trends that are affecting project management. With the age of globalization, these trends have greatly modified how managers conduct strategic and project management in the enterprise. a. Reengineering application teams will be used to bring about a fundamental rethinking and radical design of business processes to achieve improvements in organizational efficient. b. Concurrent engineering applications will continue to use concurrent product, service, and organizational development teams to develop, produce, and market products and services earlier, of a higher quality, and at a lower cost. c. Benchmarking initiatives will be conducted by teams to compare organizational products, services, and processes against the most formidable competitors and industry leaders to establish new performance standards for the enterprise. d. Business development opportunities will use teams to explore, design, develop, and execute new ventures for the enterprise. e. Improvements will be made for application of project management managing operational and strategic change. f. The influence of stakeholders as legitimate claimants of those things of value being created by the enterprise will continue to grow. g. There will be an increase in the use of alternative team organizational designs to cope with the need for the integration of interfunctional and interorganizational activities to support product, service, and process development. h. Downsizing and restructuring of organizations to improve efficiency and effectiveness has resulted in the elimination and shifting of managerial and professional positions. i. The relative roles of “managers” and “leaders will continue to come under scrutiny and redefinition. j. More emphasis will be placed on the interpersonal capabilities of executives and the role of traditional first-level supervisors changing from a traditional to a facilitator, coach, mentor, counselor, coordinator, and oversight person in obtaining and using resources in the enterprise. k. The maturation of a philosophy of strategic management of the enterprise, the management of the enterprise as if its future matter, is reflected in more proactive strategic planning and execution strategies in contemporary enterprise. l. Globalization is also a trend but can be more focused in the challenges. Challenges The challenges of globalization are so immense for organizations of the 21st century. Global competition drives the demand for products and services in countries, as well as the need for infrastructure improvement throughout the world, for project management services. (Cleland and Ireland 19) IT applications have entirely changed functions in organizations. The latest innovations allow individuals and groups to communicate wherever and whenever. Advancement in technology is so fast and competition between organizations continues to be stiff. Organizations are struggling to integrate new systems, introduce different ways to survive, and acquire the latest strategy possible. Successful system integration efforts provide competitive edge. The Information revolution has spawned numerous technologies geared towards automating the office. Information Systems has created new paradigm shifts in organizational processes. The trend in organizations is implementing Office Information Systems solutions such as groupware and enterprise applications, for example databases or shared repositories, intranets, workflow, imaging systems, and other customized applications. Technological advancement and continuous innovations have motivated organizations and businesses to react to changes in the global competition. Organizations have to reorganize, reevaluate and reprogram outdated functional programs and activities, and realign them to the present trends for improvement and competition. Personnel and field people, ordinary employees, including middle-level and top management have to refocus along the line of technological innovations. IT applications provide easy handling in the strategic operations and other supervisory and managerial functions of the organization. But this has to be studied and planned, and constantly monitored for its efficiency. Application You will discuss how you could/would use or apply the selected concept at your work. If you do not work, then think of how you’d apply it to a company (that you are familiar with, and may want to work for in the future). Try to think out of the box – be creative. Please try to reflect it on your experience – meaning how it fits your experience (“personal reflections”). Project management requires a lot of skill and knowledge on the part of the project manager. Works Cited Cleland, David I. and Ireland, Lewis R. Project Management: Strategic Design and Implementation (Fifth Edition). United States of America: McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc., 2006. Johansen, Jane and Gillard, Sharlett. Information Resources Project Management Communication: Personal and Environmental Barriers. Journal of Information Science 2005; 31; 91-98. DOI: 10.1177/0165551505050786. Web. Lock, Dennis. Project Management (Ninth Edition). England: Gower Publishing Limited, 2007. Print Shim, Jae and Siegel, Joel. Operations Management: A Streamlined Course for Students and Business People. New York: Barron’s Educational Series, Inc. Print. Read More