INTRODUCTION
In the "ready! fire! aim!" world of technology, what is the role of that staid discipline, project management? The fact that if you perform by-the-book project management, you will probably not be able to meet your competitive targets for the technology advancement.
The project manager has never been a highly touted position in information technology industry. One reason might be that it requires far more discipline than creativity, much like being a drill sergeant in the armed forces. Also, it can be detrimental to your career if you're the manager of a project that fails.
According to Kerzner, management responsibilities include the following skills:
Like many organizations, an IT organization also have to follow the guidelines of project management to have a successful project. There are a several steps that is involved in keeping an IT project on track. This project will list out these steps.
PLANNING
Project management is a science that has a track record going back decades. Its core concepts are as old as work itself. No matter how hard you try, you can't eliminate planning altogether. So project management is being forced to adapt to the technology, not the other way around.
The most important responsibility of a project manager are planning, integrating, and executing plans. Planning can be best described as the function of selecting the enterprise objectives and establishing the policies, procedures, and programs necessary for achieving them. Planning is a required management function to facilitate the comprehension of complex problems involving interacting factors.
The project manager is the key success to a good planning. There are nine major components of the planning phase:
In order to have an effective total project planning the project manager must have all the necessary information at project initiation. These information requirements are:
ORGANIZING
A key factor to good project performance is the project manager’s ability to integrate personnel from many disciplines into an effective work team.
To get a good result the project manager must relate to:
Projects are composed of processes. A process is a series of actions bringing about a result. Project processes are performed by people and generally fall into project management process category, which is concerned with describing and organizing the work of the project. (PMBOK p.27)
STAFFING
Because project managers often work in a high-responsibility, low-authority environment, they must know to elicit top performance from all members of the project team. Before the staffing function begins, five basic questions are usually considered:
According to PMBOK, when the project management team is able to influence or direct staff assignment, it must consider the characteristics of the potentially available staff. Consideration include:
A project manager is successful only if the project manager and his team are totally dedicated to the successful completion of the project. This requires that each member of the project team and office have a good understanding of the fundamental of the project requirement.
CONTROLLING
Controlling is a three-step process of measuring progress toward an objective, evaluating what remains to be completed, and taking the necessary corrective action to achieve or exceed the objectives. There are three steps included in controlling measuring, evaluating, and correcting.
In the controlling function it is very important that the project manager understands the organizational behavior in order to be effective and also must have strong interpersonal skills.
According to Doering, the team leader's role is crucial. He is directly involved and must know the individual team members well, not only in terms or their technical capabilities but also in terms of how they function when addressing a problem as part of a group. The technical competence of a potential team member can usually be determined from information about previous assignments. The leader needs a tool to measure and characterize the individual members so that he can predict their interactions and structure his task team accordingly.
DIRECTING
Directing involves seven steps:
Staffing: involves seeing that a qualified person is selected for each position.
Training: involves teaching the individuals and groups how to fulfill their duties and responsibilities.
Delegating: assigning work, responsibility, and authority so others can make maximum utilization of their ability.
Motivating: encouraging others to perform by fulfilling or appealing to their needs.
Counseling: holding private discussions with another about how he might do better work, solve a personal problem, or realize his ambitions.
Coordinating: seeing that activities are carried out in relation to their importance and with a minimum of conflict. (Kerzner p. 228)
ORGANIZATION PROJECT MANAGEMENT ANALYSIS
Most of the projects my organization handles are IT Projects. The project manager serves only as the focal point for activity control, that is, a center for information. The main responsibility of the project manager is to keep all level of management informed of the status of the project and to attempt to influence managers into completing activities on time. However, some project managers are not subject matter experts or they don't follow the rules of a good project manager. As a result to this, some projects don't succeed. To be a good project manager and to complete a project successfully, a project manager must follow the guidelines of project management.
According to David Raths, there are a several steps involved in keeping an IT project on track. These are some of the major steps.
For more detail information on the above steps, please visit http://www.itworld.com/Career/1965/IW000313caproject/
The project managers objectives during the staffing are to acquire the best available assets and try to improve them, provide a good working environment for all personnel, and make sure that all resources are applied effectively and efficiently so that all constraints are met. (Kerzner p.162)
CONCLUSION
Effective project communication is needed to ensure that we get the right information to the right person at the right time and in a cost-effective manner. Proper communication is vital to the success of the project. (Kerzner p.268)
A good project manager should be able to plan, organize, control, staff and direct. In an IT industry such as Sprint, it is important that you get the user involved from the start. Also, be careful when choose your project team. Make sure you keep the project information in one place and set regular meeting to inform the status update. Watch out for scope creep and maintain quality standards. If there is a need, don’t be afraid to call a time-out and finally use a proven tracking system.
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