Skills Required to Become a Successful Project Manager - Literature review Example

Project Management Skills required to become a successful project manager and their relationship to project failure LITERATURE REVIEW Basic Skills Required of a Project Manager There are many definitions of the term “project” and some defined it as a temporary process that has clearly defined start and end. Some see it as temporary effort of sequential activities designed to accomplish a particular objectives, a group of inter-related activities, activities with clear set of tasks with related inputs and outputs. These attributes makes a project unique from ordinary work as it seems to follow a planned, organised method with specific goals that should be worked out in specific constraints . Project management by definition on the other hand is a process consists of the sum of the processes, stages, and phases. Here the term “process” refers to effective control of stages and phases of a project from beginning to end . In PMBOK as cited in , project management is the application of knowledge, skills, tools, and techniques to different activities in order to successfully complete the project. In ISO 10006 as cited by the same author, project management is unique process where coordinated and controlled activities with beginning and end are undertaken within specific constraints including time, cost, and resources. PRINCE2 define it as temporary organisation executed to produce specific outcome using predefined resources while IPMA or the International Project Management Association recognise project management as a time and cost constrained endeavour intended to deliver products conforming to predefined quality standards and requirements . Since project management is a process, the project manager according to is the person who control the stages and phases by moving resources around into and out of the project. In more detail, a project manager based on most job description is a person that can define the scope of the project, form a team, identify and work with stakeholders, acquire support and make decisions, and responsible for developing detailed task list for the project. Specifically, a project manager is a person that can estimate project’s time requirements, develop flowcharts, identify risks and prepare contingency plan against these risks . The role of a project manager is broad and in many environments, a project manager is recognised as the general manager for the project who is capable of managing the project throughout its life cycle, balance technical, schedule, and cost performance, accountable and have total project responsibility, have authority over resources and able to start and stop work . According to , the project manager has four basic functions and these include planning, organising, leading, and controlling. Therefore, the selected project manager for a certain project must at the minimum play the role of an integrator, communicator, team leader, decision maker, and climate creator or builder. As an integrator, the project manager must execute the project according to the organisation’s overall plan. He should be a good communicator and pass on appropriate information in timely manner and a team leader who can solve problems as they come. More importantly, he should be a good decision maker particularly in balancing priorities, allocating resources, evaluating cost performance against schedule trade-offs, and change the direction of the project whenever necessary. Since a project manager cannot complete a project alone, he should build a supportive atmosphere where project teams can work together in harmony. For instance, it is necessary for the project manager to build trust, listen, and resolve conflicts in order to motivate each member of the project team. A project manager is usually expected to meet the objectives, scope, budget, and schedule of a project thus at the minimum should possess basic project management skills. According to , a project manager should have project management skills, people skills, technical skills, integration skills, and knowledge of the organisation. The project management skills required include the ability to analyse status information, prepare reports, and conduct project audits. Similarly, the project manager should have people skills or the ability to use a combination of formal authority and persuasion to make another person take full responsibility over the work and produce the required result. Figure 1- Basic Project Manager Skills Since a project is often consist of many elements and various phases of work, the project manager must be able to integrate tasks such as planning, execution, reporting, and control. For instance, the project manager must be able to integrate the work of designers to the functional specifications from the civil engineers and other players that are likely to be involved from design approval to the completion of the project. Although may be lower than usually required from the project’s technical staff, the project manager should have technical skills so he can identify potential technical problems. Lastly, a skilled project manager should understand his organisation’s culture, policies, personalities, and politics in order to effectively negotiate the needs and desires of different stakeholders and avoid pitfalls that can greatly affect the outcome of the project . By analysis, projects involved technical activities performed by many people thus basic skills such as the ability to communicate, work with others, negotiate, listen, and other relevant skills are essential. Issues involving people can significantly affect project success particularly in meeting the schedule, budget, and achieving customer satisfaction . This is because project success is highly dependent on how people work and interact . The importance of people skills according to , comes from the fact that most problems in projects are associated with people. Some of the key reasons provided on the importance of these skills include the need to ensure customer satisfaction by completing projects on time despite pressure. Another is globalised working environment where people working in the project are rarely co-located and having different working attitude. explain that there are at least six disciplines contributing to a successful project and these include interpersonal and behavioural skills such as awareness, clear communication, adaptability, diplomacy, and persistence. The project manager therefore should develop these skills and learn from previously successful interventions particularly those involving intuition and behavioural ones. In essence, a project team brings together individuals from in and outside the organisation that are focused on completing a project. Therefore, understanding the people within the project team is essential particularly when applying people management skills that motivate each individual in the group. As a team leader, a project manager must therefore recognise the importance of building, leading, and motivating the team toward timely project completion . According to , all project managers should be persistent in developing their knowledge and experience not only in project technicalities but soft skills and other competencies required to deliver a successful project. As shown below, the ten most important skills and competencies for project managers mostly involved people skills or competencies that motivate people. Table I- Ten most important Project Manager skills Rank Skills 1 People skills 2 Leadership 3 Listening 4 Integrity, ethical behaviour, consistent 5 Strong at building trust 6 Verbal communication 7 Strong at building teams 8 Conflict resolution, conflict management 9 Critical thinking, problem solving 10 Understands, balances priorities By analysis, lack of emphasis on technical skills demonstrate the inadequacies of individuals elevated to project manager position because of technical expertise alone. For instance, although some of them possess some soft skills acquired from experience, their ability to communicate may not be adequate to become an effective manager. Similarly, although some of them may be good in critical thinking and problem solving, this does not necessarily mean they can motivate people or become good leaders with integrity and consistent with their decisions. However, considering a project manager without technical knowledge may be risky as there will be tendencies to delegate technical issues entirely on technical people. For this reason, it may be best to select a project manager with adequate soft skills and some technical skills to ensure that all areas of the project are covered and well understood. Further analysis of skills ranking in Table I suggest building trust is less important than listening, which in this study’s view seem incorrect. For instance, leadership, a quality that is highly dependent on trust should be at the same level with building trust. Similarly, if listening or the ability to hear and consider suggestion and feedback is on third position then conflict management should be at the same level simply because this ability or skill is immediately required when listening to grievances and other conflicting issues. In summary, the basic skills required by a successful project manager can be divided into four categories such as personal characteristics, behavioural skills, general business skills, and technical skills. Personal characteristics include flexibility and adaptability, initiative and leadership, confidence, and persuasion, verbal fluency, ability to balance the technical and human components of the project, problem-solving and decision-making capability. Rather than intimidation and heavy-handed project management style, the project manager should have behavioural skills that motivate people such as strong interest in supporting and developing his subordinates and ability to communicate and listen actively . Case Studies of Failed Projects due to Managerial Skills According to , failure of project is often attributed to project managers poor decisions and specifically, many projects fail because one or more of the most important objectives such as meeting the budget, finishing on schedule, and meeting client specification has been missed. For instance, the baggage handling system for Denver International Airport project that was initiated in 1989 and the Segway personal transportation system, which was deployed in 2001 failed because they did not meet expectations, poor decisions making, misunderstanding of the business rationale, and project manager’s limited knowledge of the project. In the study conducted by , the root causes of project failure is seldom technical but often managerial in nature. For instance, in NASA’s Mars Climate Orbiter or MCO project, the aircraft’s signal was lost and never recovered again just four minutes after it was launched on December 11, 1998. Investigation on the incident shows that the signal loss was caused by the failure to use metric units in the coding of ground software file, which was actually the result of project manager’s failure in selecting the approach to the project, and the choices made in line with NASA’s policy of better, faster, cheaper program. Similarly, the baggage handling system in Denver International Airport was supposed to reduce flight delays, reduce waiting time at luggage carousels, and save money but due delay in its completion and a number of repairs and modification, the airport was opened two years late of its original schedule . According to , the most important reason that led to this project failure is the inability of the project manager to recognise the complexity of the project. Although well-designed, managed by experienced project managers, and expected to change the way people travelled in cities dramatically, the Segway personal transportation system fail because of poor planning, lack of communication between members of the project team, failure to appreciate the extent of uncertainties and complexity, and inability of the project manager to use appropriate management style to the project . In the collapse of Hyatt Regency walkway 1981 was attributed to poor communication between members of the project team. Investigation of the incident suggests that the structural support of the walkways gave way and fell on the lower walkway killing 114 people and injuring over 200. Further investigation shows that the steel fabricator who built the hanger details requested a change in detail and engineer approved it with checking the calculations. In essence, this project fails because the project manager failed to do his job in integrating people working on the project. The poor communication is attributed to the inability of the project manager to communicate the importance of ensuring accuracy in the design . By analysis, the failure of the technical people to follow standard procedure is lack of motivation and disregard to project leadership. For instance, if the project manager from the very beginning successfully motivated his people on quality matters, the behaviour of the engineer who approved the changes in the design may be different. Similarly, if the project manager successfully integrated all people working on the project, the steel fabricator who requested the changes may be more careful and jointly evaluate his design with the assigned design engineer. The poor detailing issue and subsequent collapse of King’s Bridge in Melbourne, Australia in July 1962 was compounded by poor communication and lack of necessary inspection. Subsequent investigation shows that bridge failure was caused by brittle factures in some spans and cracks that were found in the main tension flange plate. This project failure was due to carelessness of those who worked on the girders and the people who inspected the bridge . Again, this failure can be attributed to inability of project manager to organise and communicate quality standards to the project team. He also failed to establish a strict inspection procedure and unable to motivate the workforce in terms of quality and safety. Another case of project failure caused by inadequacies in managerial skills was the poor judgement made by engineers in the Quebece Bridge failure. The bridge collapsed due to error in dead load calculation and killed 75 workmen. Report of the incident suggests that the project was a design and construct contract and the original specification for the bridge was followed accordingly. However, the span of the original design is 1600 ft but was increased to 1800 ft thus design calculations were revised but the added dead weight in the increased span was neglected due to oversight. Although the designed noticed the flaw and 7 to 10% added working stress, it was considered safe and the work was permitted to continue. This project failure demonstrate the negative impact of project decisions and lack of communication between the project teams –consultant and designers including the project management who in reality controls the implementation of the project . In 2010, the Gulf of Mexico suffered the largest marine oil spill in history caused by an explosion on the Deepwater Horizon offshore oil platform owned by Transocean, which is under contract with British Petroleum. The project was to drill an exploratory well in the Macondo oil field but the cement barriers in the well failed causing a large explosion killing eleven crew members and completely destroy the oil rig. Investigation of the incident suggest that although BP blame Transocean for its failure to control the fire and explosion, it was BP’s flawed well design, cost-saving decisions, omissions and inaccuracies that is to responsible for the disaster. According to , the Commission report issued in 2011 about the incident points to a series of identifiable mistakes made by BP and the other two contractors. For instance, there are evidence to suggest that there was systematic failures in risk management, culture of complacency, recurring missed warning signals, failure to share information, and general ignorance of the risk involved. Further analysis of the incident shows that BP, Halliburton, and Transocean are all aware of standards and procedures including mitigation of health and safety issues but the lack of team integration result to neglect and disregard of well-established operational norms. The Deepwater Horizon explosion and oil spill demonstrate the lack of proactive management and appropriate decisions to resolve health and safety issues. According to , organisations that have some degree of excellence in project management tend to become complacent up to the point that it actually dictates the decisions of project managers. For instance, when complacency dictates the decision-making process, the benefits of performing more work in less time and with fewer resources becomes a priority while project managers tend to prioritise the objective of plan rather than the objective of the project. According to , project managers should be vigilant to risk and eliminate the negative effects of complacency. This is because risk management is not something that can be done once as risks requires continuous monitoring and assessment. There should be continuous process of documentation, feedback, and activities necessary to ensure proper level of alertness in the project. Moreover, a good project manager should be willing to do what is right for the project rather being contented with expertise and achievements . Project failures are not limited to the construction industry as technology improvement projects such as the North Carolina’s Administrative Office of the Courts management information system project failed. This project with the total expenditure of about $18, 683, 201 have been delayed several times since year 2000. In 2008, investigation conducted by the Program Evaluation Division of the Joint Legislative Program Evaluation Oversight Committee found administrative shortcomings including project managerial failures. These include failure to set priorities and obtain sufficient input from stakeholders, poor communication, project management lapses and inadequate tracking and reporting of progress . Findings of the investigating suggest that none of the new court information technology have been implemented in accordance with the agreed planning documents. For instance, each of the six project exceed their projected time for planning while planning documents that were made are difficult to interpret and apply. There were inadequate staff working in the projects while the negative impact of staff absences, turnover, and reassignment were not accounted for in planning. More importantly, there evident project management lapses that led to the delays in development and implementation of projects. For instance, there are no common project documentation standards and practices across projects, reports are created with word processing application rather than project management software, and poor communication between developers and users of court technology. In a survey conducted in 2006 among potential users of the system suggest that more than half or 67% of users were not aware of technology projects. More importantly, 84% of users reported they were not consulted in planning and design of the new system .In terms of project decisions, the project manager made most decisions informally leading to unclear priorities and competing interests . Relationship between project management skills and projects failure The impact of project failure to an organisation is significant. These include financial losses, reduction of organisation’s credibility with customers and competitive advantage . According to , although the reason for project failures vary, there is a strong consensus that majority of these failures are directly attributable to poor project management. This is because managing projects include soft skills and ineffective practice of these skills often lead to poor or failed projects . explains that the inability of the project manager to use effective project management skills significantly increase project cost due to waste of resources, unaligned strategy, misunderstood priorities, high stress, low morale, and poor project performance. Poor project management practices such as poor creativity and visioning, communication, interview, and planning skills, over allocation of resources, misunderstanding the scope of work; ineffective workload management skills, poor delegation and managing skills can significantly affect the success of the project. A project consist of various interrelated constituents such as resources, tasks, technology, and people working against time and under stress thus the role of project manager is complex and require various skills . According to , there are four key variables that determine effectiveness of a project manager in dealing with project stakeholders and these include credibility, prioritisation, accessibility, and visibility. These four key variables means that the project manager must be a sound decision maker, knows how to connect the project to organisation goals, well experienced, recognised facts over opinion, good communicator, obtain support from functional groups, reward performance, and create a common understanding of the project. Project failures as mentioned earlier are never accidental as there are always root causes and often, they are traced back to lack of managerial skills. For instance, research conducted by suggest that competencies and skills of a project manager have enormous impact on the success of the project thus for a project to succeed, the chosen project manager should have the necessary skills. As shown below, these skills are essential to project success thus lack of it means failure. Figure 2- Essential Project Manager Skills By analysis, project manager’s lack of technical skills for instance will likely lead to tasks prioritisation problems and consequent project failure. Similarly, the lack of communication and listening skills will likely result to misunderstanding and conflict between members of the project team and therefore failure as there is no appropriate and timely corrective action taken . Considering the skills presented in Figure 2 and those that were identified by the Association of Project Management as cited in that include communication, teamwork, leadership, conflict management, negotiation, and personnel management skills, they all boils down to soft skills or skills necessary to effectively manage people. The relationship between project management skills and project failure is in the lack of these essential project manager skills. Moreover, since the project manager has been traditionally recognised as the person with the primary responsibility for building, leading, and motivating the project team, thus his abilities determine the outcome of the project. According to , projects that fail due to planning, organisation, resource, directional, controlling, and coordination failure can be attributed to improper choice of the project manager. For instance, planning failure is caused by unclear objectives and targets and failure of the project manager to identify critical items, determined appropriate operating procedure, reluctance to make timely decisions, and ignorance of appropriate planning tools and techniques. Similarly, directional failure can be attributed to lack of team spirit, internal conflicts, and poor human resource management that are direct responsibilities of the project manager. According to , it is a common mistake to appoint a project manager that has excellent technical skills but weak managerial abilities. This is because managing projects involved not only careful evaluation of all stages of the project but managing large number of people. For instance, technical skills alone will likely result to neglect of competent planning, crisis management becoming a way of life, over budget while difficulties and errors are compounded. explains that project decisions should be based on sound management principles thus technical skills alone is inadequate. Moreover, project management soft skills such as communication management, human resource management, and contract management negotiations are essential to the successful delivery of the project thus technical skills along with lack of understanding of processes can result to project manager spending unnecessary and non-productive time and effort on people . Selecting a project manager with the right skills is important to avoid failure as according to , the common cause of project failure is assigning under-skilled project manager. Failure to select the correct individual to be the project manager can lead to resource and time allocation problems and conflict within project team members. Finding a competent project manager who is capable of handling a diverse community of people such team members, organisational managers and executives, shareholders, and the client is therefore important in avoiding project failure. Most important skills to be a successful project manager As discussed earlier, there a number of skills required to become a successful project manager but the most important skills seems those intended for managing people. For instance, a project manager typically has a set of specialised skills such as scope management, risk management, quality management, and other that he can use to manage a project. However, the project manager must be at the same time have a standard set of skills such as general management skills such as motivational and human resource skills that he can use to build teams, communicate, lead, resolve conflict, negotiate, and solve problems . According to , general management skills is required on every project and these skills is highly recommended for anyone who wants to be a project manager. However, one of the ongoing problems in project management is that most people elevated to the position of project manager are selected because they are technically competent rather a person that can bring a project to a successful conclusion. Although, technical expertise helps in the execution of a project, a project manager is not necessarily the person with the most knowledge about technical areas but someone who completely understand project management. This is because project management is largely about managing people, choosing the right people, right skills, right tasks, motivating and building an effective team . As described in Table 1, the ten most important skills are all about dealing with people rather than technical expertise. In the study conducted by El-Sabaa (2001) as cited in , human skill gathered a percentile score 85.30 and emerged as the most important project manager skill while conceptual and organisational comes second with 79.60 and technical skill as the least essential with 50.46. Similarly, in a study conducted by Odusami (2002) as cited in , the most important project manager skill is leadership and motivation which in essence are human skills. Human skills according to are those that facilitate effective mobilization, communication, coping with situations, delegation of authority, political sensitivity, promote high self-esteem and enthusiasm. Conceptual skills on the other hand are those required for effective planning, organising, and goal orientation and provide the ability to see the project as a while, understand the relationship of individual project to the community and industry. In contrast, technical skills never deal with people and include specialised knowledge of tools and techniques, methods, processes, procedures, and technology requirements. Figure 3- Most important PM Skills ( According to , technical skills over the years becomes less and less important because effective project management demands more managerial skills that include the ability to think strategically, innovate, and build effective teams. Moreover, project management experts over the years finally recognised the importance of energy and drive, professional integrity, morale, determination, and commitment to the success of the project . A very close second to leadership and motivation is communication skills as a good leader must be a good communicator. This is because communication at its basic level is an exchange of information where both parties learn . Communication is the most important aspect of a project and in particular, communication is central to managing project integration and timely distribution of project information . Another is negotiating skills as projects require conflict resolution and skills that facilitate balancing of issues and effective team working . In summary, the most important skills that a project manager should have include the human skills or the ability to lead and motivate people. Although less important, the competencies of a project manager will not be complete without conceptual, organisation, and technical skills as they are all contributing to project management success. The case studies of project failure as result of poor managerial skills presented earlier demonstrate the importance of possessing soft skills. For instance, failure to meet the budget or complete the project on time is a result of poor resource management and inability to motivate the workforce properly. The baggage handling system in Denver International Airport failed because the project manager lacks knowledge and skills in handling complex projects. Similarly, the failure of Segway personal transportation system did not meet the expectations of the public as the project manager, aside from having poor decision-making skills and limited knowledge of this type project, misunderstood the business rationale and succumb to everyday crisis management. The lost of signal from NASA’s Mars Climate Orbiter was due to miscommunication and project manager’s inability to apply appropriate project management approach. Several construction projects such as the Hyatt Regency walkway fail for the same reason and in particular, the project manager’s lack of leadership, motivational, conceptual, and organisational skills that led to negligence and false assumptions. Aside from missing the importance of integration and communication, the project manager in this project seems not interested in the technical aspects and safety of the public. Similarly, the project manager’s failure to communicate the importance of quality and accuracy led to the collapse of King’s Bridge and Quebec Bridge. The impact of complacency on project manager’s mentality can greatly affect his decisions as in the case of BP whose unquestionable achievement in project management led to the death of eleven crewmembers and destruction of the environment. Aside from flawed well design, the cost saving decisions, omissions and inaccuracies of project management led to systematic failures and ignorance of warning signs. For instance, the lack of team integration resulted to small but systematic failures that in the end result to disaster. In contrast, the failure of six IT projects in North Carolina was caused by complete lack of knowledge about project management. For instance, managerial failures such as the setting priorities, sharing information to stakeholders, communication, scheduling, monitoring, and reporting are basic skills that a project manager should have but apparently, the person managing the projects was unable to deliver. Considering the fact that none of the projects are implemented despite time extensions and adequate budget, the project management approach employed may be assumed as flawed and inappropriate for this type of project. In general, a project manager should be someone who fully understands the rudiments of project management, with strong leadership and motivational skills, understands the business rationale, aware of the complexity and risk involved, and willing to do what is right for the project. This is because a project manager that lacks the most important skills is destined to fail particularly in complex projects requiring additional skills. More importantly, selection of project manager should not be based entirely on technical expertise but strong leadership and ability to lead the project to success. References Bainey, K. R. (2004). Integrated IT Project Management: A Model-centric Approach, Artech House.US Cabanis-Brewin, J. (2010). The AMA Handbook of Project Management, AMACOM.US Cagle, R. B. (2005). Your Successful Project Management Career, AMACOM.US Chemuturi, M. & Cagley, T. M. (2010). Mastering Software Project Management: Best Practices, Tools and Techniques, J. 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Human Factors in Project Management: Concepts, Tools, and Techniques for Inspiring Teamwork and Motivation, Wiley.US  Read More