the overall project, establish the anticipated start and completion dates. Some phases, of course, may overlap. Subgroups of the team may be working independently and the work of one subgroup may not depend on the work of another subgroup. Nonlinearity in a project and its overlapping phases offer tremendous flexibility in scheduling activities.
While deadlines should be established in the initial schedule, maintaining flexibility is also important. It is highly unlikely that everything will happen according to schedule. Furthermore, as the team starts its work, the members will gain a better understanding of the problems, and the schedule and budget may have to be modified.
An initial financial budget should be prepared for each phase of the project. The initial budget should be prepared after considering human, financial, and information resources. For capital expenditures, consider both purchasing and leasing, as appropriate. Variance analysis should be conducted at the end of each phase by comparing the actual to budget Exhibits for costs, time, and productivity. This allows you to monitor actual expenditures and time, and to take corrective action, if necessary, to keep the project within budget.
Assembling the Project Team
The project team is a major determinant of the success or failure of a project. As the team increases in size, its diversity increases, managing the tasks becomes more difficult and complex, and the potential for conflict increases. There might be misunderstandings in communication. Different individuals have different motives and goals.
Team Assignment
As a project manager, you may or may not have control over the staff members assigned to the project team. If a team is being imposed, you should communicate with senior management and request that they allow your involvement in the selection process. For example, you could give them a list of individuals with whom you have worked successfully in the past. Emphasize the importance of having a cohesive project team and that such a team is critical to the project’s success.
Of course, sometimes it just is not possible to put together a team of your choice and you have to do the best with those you are given. These individuals may be perfectly capable of doing the job. Alternatively, they may have been assigned to this project simply because they were available. It is also possible that these individuals were assigned because of their interest or talent. In any event, you should give each individual a chance to do the best possible work, and you may find yourself pleasantly surprised.
It is important to inspire and motivate team members. Your aim should be to help team members understand how the success of the project will affect their individual success. It is common for individuals to place top priority on self-gain, so ensuring that team members anticipate personal success ensures their commitment to the project. You need to specifically identify the benefits to the team members to motivate them and to focus their energies on the project. An ideal team member understands the desired results and is committed to making it happen.
Job Assignment
It is generally best to break a large project into several phases and each phase into distinct tasks. Each team member should then be assigned the responsibility of executing one or more of those tasks, which should not be highly structured. To motivate team members, assign them the responsibility for a given job and let them approach it the way they believe is best. This, of course, does not mean that you should not supervise them or give them guidance. Coordinate the activities and make sure the team members understand the goals and aims of the task. However, by providing team members with responsibility for certain tasks, you give them an incentive to put in their best efforts. This also lets them know that you trust them and that you have confidence in their abilities.
Delegating Duties
If you are too assertive and too controlling, you may stifle the freedom of your project team and impede its creativity. An effective project manager knows how to delegate the work. You should not insist that the project be done your way. Your role should be to monitor the team’s work and coordinate its efforts, while watching the budget and the time schedule of each phase of the project. Of course, you should be available to help your team members, especially if they come to you with a problem.
Conflict Resolution
Conflicts sometimes develop among team members or groups of team members. For example, individuals may differ as to how to approach the project or solve a problem, or groups may compete for credit for some work. As the project manager, your aim is to resolve conflicts and to make sure these conflicts do not destroy the progress of the project. Emphasize to your team that the success of the project is more important than the success of any individual. Stress that everyone benefits from the project’s success and everyone loses from its failure.
Self-Directed Work Teams
The self-directed team structure is an alternate to the traditional team structure and has become very popular recently. A self-directed team is a group of well-trained workers with full responsibility for completing a well-defined segment of work. This segment of work may be the entire finished product or an intermediate part of the whole. Every member of the team shares equal responsibility for the entire segment of work. Conceptually, self-directed teams are the opposite of traditional teams that work in an assembly-line manner. In an assembly line, each worker assumes responsibility for only a narrow technical function. In self-directed teams, each worker is equally responsible for the entire segment. This, of course, requires that the team members receive extensive training in administrative, technical, and interpersonal skills to maintain a self-managing group. Self-directed teams have many more resources available to them compared with traditional teams.
Traditional teams assign a narrow function to each member. Since a large number of people contribute to the finished product, individual workers see little relationship between their efforts and the finished product. This often leads to apathy and alienation. All members in self-directed teams receive extensive cross-training, and they share in both the challenging as well as the routine activities for their segment of work.
Obtaining Senior Management Support
Obtaining the cooperation of senior management is essential. Senior management’s involvement and attitude toward projects differ from company to company and from person to person. Senior management might be very supportive of the project or may hardly care at all about it. Senior management’s attitudes may be classified as follows:
►“It is your project. You have to solve your own problems. I don’t want to be bothered until it is completed.”
►“I would be happy to work with you and resolve any problem you encounter.”
►“A Ithough I would like to help, there is nothing I can do. You will have to resolve this problem on your own.”
►“Keep me apprised of the situation and any problems you encounter. I want to be informed of everything.”
Regardless of senior management’s attitude, you should be prepared to complete the project without any help. Frequently, you will have no choice but to do the best you can with limited or available resources.
Developing a Feasible Budget
The budgeting process may be a source of confusion and frustration for many project managers. There may be a great deal of pressure to remain within the budget. A budget is simply an estimate of the sources and uses of cash and other resources. Since the budget is an estimate, it is unlikely that the final expenditures will be exactly equal to the budget.
Preparing the budget at a realistic level is important. Agreeing to an inadequate budget is unwise. While it may be convenient at the formation stage to reduce or minimize conflict, you and your project will ultimately suffer. You will be expected to explain unfavorable variances to senior management. Moreover, you will likely receive a very negative response when your project goes over budget.
The budget should always be developed by the project manager. It is unrealistic to work with an imposed budget.