Introduction
Successful execution of a project is the goal of any project manager. A project manager is in charge of running a project and he must possess a myriad of skills for him or her to execute her tasks well. Practical as well as theoretical skills are required in running any project. A project manager is a leader of a project and therefore he or she should carry himself or herself as one.
Depending on the type of a project being executed, different skills will be required of the project manager. It is of significant amount for a project manager to possess some know how on the type of project he or she is in charge of. In this manner the project manager will be in a better position to offer better advice in case of urgent issues which may require his or her attention.
A skilled project manager in the area of the project will make it easy for communication and negotiation with the technical staff in case such a project has such a staff. It is very critical that a project manager is aware of all the divisions of project and is able to interact effectively and easily with them.
A project manger must have a strong conviction that a project being executed will be successful; in such a manner he or she will be able to breathe life into the project during critical and hard moments. Interaction is very significant in ensuring that a project will be executed successfully. A project manager will therefore determine to a great extent how successful a project will be.
A Project from a Project Manager Point of View
Organizational Goals
In the eyes of a project manager, a project is meant to accomplish to some organizational goals. In most cases, projects are carried out as solutions to problems that have been encountered by an organization. For the case of a huge company such as Airbus, there are many issues on which a project may be carried out.
For instance, a project may be carried out to find out the best means of communicating with customers, or it might be more technical, for instance, developing an advanced communication gadget for the company. Whatever project is, it is always inclined to the company goals. Therefore, in the view of any project manager, a project is meant to reinforce an organization goal(s).
Implementation
The implementation of a project is the most significant part of a project. To a project manager he or she must ensure that this part takes off well as it determines how successful a project will be executed. In order to carry out a successful project, the manager should reconcile a project to the organization. He or she must always be aware of the project objectives and how they contributed to the organizational goals and in such a manner he or she will be in a good position to direct the project away from running off the organization’s goals.
Apart from being constantly aware of the organizational goals, a project manager should always be aware of the project goals and thus steer the project in that direction. According to Heerkens (2007), a project manager must be ready mentally to implement a project. Mental capacity and readiness to implement a project is of great significance for the success of the project. It is also important as this readiness will stream down to the rest of the members in a project (Heerkens 1).
In the eyes of a project manager, a project should be drawn out elaborately to show all the details. Having a detailed path of how a project will be drawn is necessary to create a mental picture of the process of implementation and to anticipate any bottle necks that may be incurred in the process of implementation. A project manager should be aware and conversant with all the details and parts of a project. For easy implementation of a project, most project managers will divide a project into programs.
This is especially important where staff from various faculties will need to work in a single project. Such cases occur in technical companies like Airbus. Airbus is manufacturer and in most cases any project run by the company will involve staff from various technical fields. For a project to maximally utilize these technical people well, the whole project should be divided into sections referred to as programs.
Various tasks completed by staff in various programs will complete a project. In most cases, project managers will create programs with related tasks for easy accomplishment of the project tasks. Young argued that “programme management provides the organization with an opportunity to break down the work into a group of related and interdependent projects” (15).
It takes more than dividing a project into programs. The project manager should be in a good position to manage various programs created. Program management was defined by Lester as the one that has “the co-ordinated management of a group of related projects to ensure the best use of resources in delivering the projects to the specified time, cost and quality/performance criteria” (Lester 9).
In such scenario, it would be of advantage if the project manager has at least some slight technical skills on various programs created. Having technical skills will enable the project manager to communicate freely with the technical staff in various programs in a project. Such skills and communication are significant because they enable a project manager to figure out the progress of a project accurately.
Figuring out the progress of a project especially in a highly technical field will require that a project manager is conversant with what takes place in various programs. This is usually the case for manufacturing companies such as Airbus. As a matter of fact, it will be very hard for a project manager to question a delayed process when he or she does not have a rough idea of what it takes to complete such a process.
In sensitive area such as a manufacturing of airplanes, it is significant that a project manager running any project in such a company is fully aware of the technical process to avoid comprising a mistake in such process.
This is the reason why in most technical projects, the project manager is usually an expert in the process that the project is being undertaken. It is also evident that if a project manager understands the technical details of the project especially in technically areas, he or she will not fall for intimidation from the project members.
Success Criteria
The success of a project is the dream of every project manager. A project manager will be considered failed if the project will not have achieved its goals. A project manager must therefore come up with success criteria. All managers understand that the success of a project is indicated by the minor success achieved when running a project.
Project managers will set milestones whose achievement will be an indication of positive progress to them. In setting up the milestones, the project manager should incorporate the project members. The setting of such minor goals should be more of an agreement by the project member and less of a directive from the team project manager (Wiegers 1).
Again this brings up the need for a project manager to act as a leader and share the vision of the project to the project members. He or she should ensure that he or she has a cordial relationship with the people working under him or her in the project. Setting up goals can take a simple form as the one shown below adopted from (Wiegers 1).
Strategies of Managing a Project
For a project to be run successfully, a manager must develop or adopt strategies of managing a project. As already hinted above, a successful project manager will have to take care of the following: “defining the project, developing the solution, planning implementation of the solution, developing milestones, reviewing progress, staying on Track/Course correction, and utilizing technology to support project management” (McEnery & Scott, n.d., p. 4).
A project manager should also be aware of the life cycle of a project. Depending on the complexity of the project there are various methods that project managers can utilize in managing projects. Some of the modern methods that managers use to manage complicated projects include PRINCE2, PMBOK, and APM. PRINCE2 is a modification of an early version PRINCE. PRINCE2 is an important tool used for the purpose of running up a project successfully.
The method can be used in “starting up, initiation, controlling a stage, managing product delivery, managing stage boundaries and closing a project” (PRINCE 1). PMBOK is an internally recognized method (IEEE std 1490-2003). When using PMBOK, there are nine significant areas encountered “project scope management; project time management; project cost management; project quality management; project human resource management; project communication management and; project risk management” (Haughey 1).
APM is the Association of Project Management and carried out research on the best techniques of managing projects. The association has publication with case studies which can be used for reference purpose (APM 1). A manager should be aware of these resources and should choose the one which will best fit the project that he or she is running.
In highly technical areas, in the manufacturing of aircrafts as is the case of Airbus, there is a need for a project manager to make reference to past cases. References to past cases may help point out technical hitches which are likely to be encountered early enough such that the project manager is able to make rectification.
Conclusion
The view that a project manager has on a project is very significant and to a great extent determines how successful a project is executed. A project manager should aspire to enrich himself or herself with the best techniques of managing a project. He or she should ensure that there exists a rapport among the project members to ensure that communication is enhanced.
Works Cited
APM. “What is project management.” APAM, 2011. Web.
Haughey, Duncan. “The Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK).” Project Smart, 2011. Web.
Heerkens, Gary. Project Management: 24 steps to help you master any project. New York, NY: Cengage, 2007. Print.
Lester, Albert. Project management, planning and control: managing engineering, construction and manufacturing projects to PMI, APM and BSI standards. New York, NY: Butterworth-Heinemann, 2006. Print.
McEnery, Jack and Scott Alan. “Strategic for Managing projects.” University of Illinois. Web.
PRINCE. “Project Management – PRINCE2.” PRINCE, 2011. Web.
Wiegers, Karl. “Success criteria breed success.” International Business Machines, 2011. Web.
Young, Trevor. The handbook of project management: a practical guide to effective policies and procedures. New York, NY: Kogan Page, 2003. Print.