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.So when I am asked what I consider to bethe most important attributes for projectSo when I am askedmanagers to have, I always say that peo-ple skills are number one through three.what I consider toThen, below that, comes everything else.be the most impor-If you can deal with people, you can ei-ther learn to do everything else or dele-tant attributes forgate it to someone who can do it.Butproject managersbeing able to do everything else withoutbeing good at dealing with people justto have, I alwayswon’t cut it.Now the question is, do you reallysay that peoplewant to be a project manager? Do youskills are numberlike having responsibility with very lim-ited authority? Do you enjoy workingone through three.to impossible deadlines, with limited re-sources and unforgiving stakeholders? Are you, in other words, a bit masochistic? If you are, then you will love being a project manager.If you are the boss of project managers, these are things you should consider in selecting people for the job.Not everyone is cut out for the job.American Management Association • www.amanet.orgThe Role of the Project Manager 31Key Points to Remember៑ A project manager must understand the mission and vision of the organization first, see how the project they are managing meshes with the organization’s mission, and then steer the project to ensure that the interests of the organization are met.៑ The first skills a project manager needs are people skills.៑ One of the biggest traps for project managers is to perform technical work in addition to managing the job, because, when there is a conflict between performing the two, the project manager cannot neglect the management aspects.៑ Instead of asking for authority, make decisions yourself, take action that is appropriate and does not violate policy, and then inform your boss what you have done.៑ The project manager’s job is to ensure that everyone in the project team has what he needs to do his job well.៑ A project manager must exercise both leadership and management skills.American Management Association • www.amanet.orgCHAPCHTER 3APPlanning the Projectn Chapter 1, I talked about the high cost of project failures.Almost every study finds that failures are caused primarily by poor project management, especially the failure to plan I properly.There are two barriers to good planning.The first is prevailing paradigms, and the second is the nature of human beings.A paradigm is a belief about what the world is like.You can tell what people believe by watching what they do, because they always behave consistently with their deeply held beliefs.It is not necessarily what they say they believe but what they really believe that counts.Chris Argyris, in his book Overcoming Organizational Defenses: Facilitating Organization Learning, has called these beliefs one’s theory espoused as opposed to one’s theory in practice.To illustrate, a fellow who attended my seminar on the tools of project management later told me that, upon returning to work, he immediately convened a meeting of his project team to prepare a plan.His boss called him out of the conference room.“What are you doing?” asked the boss.“Planning our project,” explained the fellow.32American Management Association • www.amanet.orgPlanning the Project33“Oh, you don’t have time for that nonsense,” his boss told him.“Get them out of the conference room so they can get the job done!”It is clear that his boss didn’t believe in planning, which raises this question: Why did he send the fellow to a training program if he really didn’t believe in what is taught? Go figure.The second reason that people don’t plan is that they find the activity painful.Some individuals, especially engineers and programmers, are concerned that they will be held to estimates of task durations that they have made using their best guesses.Because they have no historical data to draw on, this is all they can do.But they also know that such numbers are highly uncertain, and they are afraid that failure to meet established targets will get them in trouble.As one of my engineers told me once, “You can’t schedule creativity.”I replied that this may be true, but we must pretend we can, because no one will fund the project unless we put down a time.Since then, I have changed my mind—you can schedule creativity, within limits.In fact, there is no better stimulus to creative thinking than a tight deadline.If you give people forever, they simply mess around and don’t produce anything.Nevertheless, we find that, when people are required to plan a project, they find the activity painful, and they resist the pain it causes.The net result is that they wind up on the pain curve numbered 1 in Figure 3-1.The net result of being on this curve is to experience a lot of pain, because the total pain experienced is represented by the area under the curve.In curve 2 of the figure, there is a lot of pain early on, but it diminishes over time, and the total area under the curve is less than that under curve 1 [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
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.So when I am asked what I consider to bethe most important attributes for projectSo when I am askedmanagers to have, I always say that peo-ple skills are number one through three.what I consider toThen, below that, comes everything else.be the most impor-If you can deal with people, you can ei-ther learn to do everything else or dele-tant attributes forgate it to someone who can do it.Butproject managersbeing able to do everything else withoutbeing good at dealing with people justto have, I alwayswon’t cut it.Now the question is, do you reallysay that peoplewant to be a project manager? Do youskills are numberlike having responsibility with very lim-ited authority? Do you enjoy workingone through three.to impossible deadlines, with limited re-sources and unforgiving stakeholders? Are you, in other words, a bit masochistic? If you are, then you will love being a project manager.If you are the boss of project managers, these are things you should consider in selecting people for the job.Not everyone is cut out for the job.American Management Association • www.amanet.orgThe Role of the Project Manager 31Key Points to Remember៑ A project manager must understand the mission and vision of the organization first, see how the project they are managing meshes with the organization’s mission, and then steer the project to ensure that the interests of the organization are met.៑ The first skills a project manager needs are people skills.៑ One of the biggest traps for project managers is to perform technical work in addition to managing the job, because, when there is a conflict between performing the two, the project manager cannot neglect the management aspects.៑ Instead of asking for authority, make decisions yourself, take action that is appropriate and does not violate policy, and then inform your boss what you have done.៑ The project manager’s job is to ensure that everyone in the project team has what he needs to do his job well.៑ A project manager must exercise both leadership and management skills.American Management Association • www.amanet.orgCHAPCHTER 3APPlanning the Projectn Chapter 1, I talked about the high cost of project failures.Almost every study finds that failures are caused primarily by poor project management, especially the failure to plan I properly.There are two barriers to good planning.The first is prevailing paradigms, and the second is the nature of human beings.A paradigm is a belief about what the world is like.You can tell what people believe by watching what they do, because they always behave consistently with their deeply held beliefs.It is not necessarily what they say they believe but what they really believe that counts.Chris Argyris, in his book Overcoming Organizational Defenses: Facilitating Organization Learning, has called these beliefs one’s theory espoused as opposed to one’s theory in practice.To illustrate, a fellow who attended my seminar on the tools of project management later told me that, upon returning to work, he immediately convened a meeting of his project team to prepare a plan.His boss called him out of the conference room.“What are you doing?” asked the boss.“Planning our project,” explained the fellow.32American Management Association • www.amanet.orgPlanning the Project33“Oh, you don’t have time for that nonsense,” his boss told him.“Get them out of the conference room so they can get the job done!”It is clear that his boss didn’t believe in planning, which raises this question: Why did he send the fellow to a training program if he really didn’t believe in what is taught? Go figure.The second reason that people don’t plan is that they find the activity painful.Some individuals, especially engineers and programmers, are concerned that they will be held to estimates of task durations that they have made using their best guesses.Because they have no historical data to draw on, this is all they can do.But they also know that such numbers are highly uncertain, and they are afraid that failure to meet established targets will get them in trouble.As one of my engineers told me once, “You can’t schedule creativity.”I replied that this may be true, but we must pretend we can, because no one will fund the project unless we put down a time.Since then, I have changed my mind—you can schedule creativity, within limits.In fact, there is no better stimulus to creative thinking than a tight deadline.If you give people forever, they simply mess around and don’t produce anything.Nevertheless, we find that, when people are required to plan a project, they find the activity painful, and they resist the pain it causes.The net result is that they wind up on the pain curve numbered 1 in Figure 3-1.The net result of being on this curve is to experience a lot of pain, because the total pain experienced is represented by the area under the curve.In curve 2 of the figure, there is a lot of pain early on, but it diminishes over time, and the total area under the curve is less than that under curve 1 [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]