PMI PMP Project Management Professional – Role of the Project Manager

1. Section Overview: Role of the Project Manager

Look where you are already. You’re ready to go into Section Nine, the role of the project manager. That is fantastic. Good job. Well, in this section, we’re going to talk about you, the project manager. Everybody else talks about you. Why shouldn’t I? Well, we’re really going to talk about the role of a project manager. So what is a project manager?

How do you influence people where you work? What about the competencies that you need and the management competencies and the technical competencies and business and management skills? So we’re going to talk about leadership, management being technically astute, and then how do you apply that to get things done? So we’re going to be looking at a little bit of leadership, and we’ll see leadership start to creep in more and more into some of these sections. We want to talk about leadership skills. We also need to acknowledge something that a lot of PMS don’t like. I don’t particularly enjoy it, but they exist, and that’s politics. So we need to talk about politics and how that affects us as a project manager. So we need to discuss politics, power and getting things done.

A little formula. There not a real math formula, but just the idea that politics and power go together and they affect how we get to manage the project and get things done. We’ll look at the difference between leadership and management, that there’s a real distinct difference here. Then I have an assignment for you that’s kind of fun. It’s looking at the difference between what managers say and what leaders say. And so you’ll do that assignment as we get to that point in the course. So a lot of information here. I particularly enjoy this particular section because I like to talk about leadership and management and some emotional intelligence, so I think you will as well. And then we’re going to see this material kind of percolate again later in the course when we talk about human resources. Chapter Nine in the Pinbox on resource management. All right, let’s get in here and knock this out.

2. Definition of a Project Manager

A new chapter in the Pmbok guide is to define the role of the project manager. Now, I know you may say that you already know what your role is as a project manager or your role as a project manager is unique to where you’re working. That’s probably true. All that’s probably true. However, for your exam, you, you should be clear on what PMI defines as the role of project manager because there may be some differences from what your expectations are or your organization, what they have defined as the role of project manager and what you may be tested on. So let’s talk about the role of the project manager. First off, the role of the project manager to define the project manager. Project managers manage things and they lead people, they manage the project and they lead people to the conclusion, they lead people to get results. That’s what project management is all about, is getting things done. But of course we manage and we lead.

Getting things done is possible, but we do it within the system and the framework and the governance that we talked about earlier. Project managers are also an active listener. An active listener means you’re involved in the conversation, that you’re really hearing what the stakeholder is saying, that we’re involved and that we hear the message and we restate it or we paraphrase it for confirmation or for clarity. So these are some attributes of a good project manager. Project managers communicate. Probably the most important skill you can have as a project manager is communicating. Communicating means both listening and speaking. Written and oral is part of this as well. Then we have communications that are internal to the project, like with our project team and stakeholders, and then also external to the project.

We have the project manager to the external customer or to the community at large or with different inspectors or government officials. So you think about how you communicate internally versus how you might change that communication, where it’s more formal with externally. So project managers communicate some other attributes here that will set the tone for what a project manager does in communication. We have formal communication. These are reports and presentations. So you think about a formal report, informal, maybe like these hallway meetings or ad hoc meetings. And email is an informal vertical. Communications means I follow the flowchart that I communicate up and down. Horizontal is across, like director to director or PM to PM.

So those are different ways that affect my communication as a project manager. Of course, communication is crucial. It’s one of the most important activities you’ll do as a project manager. Later in the course, when we get to module ten of the Pinbox, we’ll have a whole chapter on communication. But because communication is so important and it’s one of the biggest activities that you do as a project manager, we really spend some time on it now because it will affect the rest of our course and the rest of the Pinball guide. Communication is crucial, so we need to know some attributes. Here a sender receiver model and we’ll look at this in more detail coming up when we get into chapter ten of the Pinbox. But it’s just a way of saying that I’m the sender and I want to send a message to you. So what are the mechanics of getting from me to you when I send this message? So I’m the sender and the receiver. Media selection is important. Do I need a formal report that I have to print out and give to you? Can I attach it to an email? Is it in a binder? Is it a press release? So what’s the media selection? So should it be written? Maybe a phone call or a video or web conferencing is appropriate.

What about the style of how I communicate? The style being my tone and inflection and the words that I choose? If I’m giving a presentation, do I have a PowerPoint? Do I have charts and graphs? So how formal is that presentation? Or what are the expectations of the presentation? I want to do facilitation, so some meeting management, getting people involved, talking directly to people in the meetings and making sure that we’re sticking to an agenda and to timelines. So facilitation and meeting management, those two really go together. Project managers also negotiate that we have to aim for a fair agreement. We want both parties to be happy, but we want to keep the project moving forward. We think about the priorities when we negotiate. So what’s the most important thing must have, should haves nice to haves, or that prioritized product backlog?

So what’s the most important thing to think about and to address in the project right now? What about the technical approach for the project? So you think about the different disciplines and what technical approach is best for the project? We want to do too much, we don’t want to do too little. We want to do just the right amounts. We don’t want to overengineer the solution. We may also have to negotiate in the project scope, schedule and cost. Those are all competing objectives. So you have this much schedule and this much funny and all the time that you want, those are not imbalance. So that’s an idea. We used to talk about the iron triangle where time, cost and scope have to be imbalanced. Those are competing objectives.

Changes that happen to the project scope, to the schedule or budget can also skew expectations that we have in the project. So if my scope changes, I’m probably going to need more time and or more money. So we have changes there that may require some negotiations. As a project manager, you might be negotiating the terms and the conditions with vendors. So some procurement issues here, project team members assignments and their schedules, so they have to negotiate and some of that’s going to depend on the organizational structure. So if you’re in a matrix structure and your team is coming from all over, there might be some negotiation there on when you’re able to use resources or project team members so that can affect how your project operates and the level of negotiation you do with others. Resource constraints are when people are available and when facilities and equipment are available. So you may have to do some trade offs here or some negotiations as to when you’re allowed to utilize that resource on your project. Not just people, but it could also be equipment. Project manager is also problem solved. Here’s something that a lot of people miss with their exam.

The exam is problem solving. It’s not just a test of what you know in the realm of project management. It’s a test of your abilities to figure out problems, to read a solution and then compare that against what the question or the issue may be. So problem solving is a skill that we need as project managers. So this includes some things like problem definition, to be able to clearly state the definition and really identify what the problem is. And then we do root cause analysis that we’re not treating symptoms, we’re treating the root cause. What has caused this problem to happen? Maybe a combination of things. So what are these causal factors? And then we go to the problem. When there’s a problem in the project, we don’t ignore it. We have to confront the problem. Sometimes we have to go to management and talk about the problem and present the problem. But we don’t go to management without a proposed solution. All right, good job. These are all characteristics of you a project manager.

3. Project Manager’s Sphere of Influence

As a project manager you can influence different organizations and groups and people in your project. Those same folks, stakeholders, customers, the project team members and managers can have influence on you and how you manage the project. So we need to be aware of our organizational structure and the culture and the politics and the powers that be that these all have an influence on us as the PM and that how do we influence them in light of the project. So let’s take a look at some project manager influences. First off, the project team.

Obviously the PM can influence the project team members because we give assignments, we want them to go do the work well. The project team can also influence the project manager. They can sway their decisions or try to negotiate with the project manager for how the work should be done and how much freedom they have to do the work. And so there’s a relationship there between the team and the project manager where they can influence one another organizational managers. So you think about those functional managers or department heads that they have an influence on the PM because they have control over the resources that the project manager is going to use on the project.

The PMO, if you’re working with a PMO, remember that we had the directive and controlling and supportive, so they can influence the project manager. And then you might have a steering committee, especially before a project gets start or an initiation that you have to work with. And so the steering committee can help choose the project and set the goals or the KPIs of the project and really help set the vision of where the project’s going in the priority level. So all of those folks have influence on the project manager. The project manager can also reverse that. They can influence the team, the managers, the PMO and the steering committee. So it’s a symbiotic or a two way relationship here. So how does one go about influencing?

Well, communication, again, communication skills because when you want to influence someone, you are giving an argument, not necessarily a combative argument, but you’re giving an argument about your case or your position or why something should happen. Also having a positive attitude and providing project leadership is a great way to influence people. This is a really important thing for the Pmbok, that we want good morale and we want the project manager to have a good attitude. And so that’s important. And it’s easier to influence people when you are combative, but you’re able to state your case, make an argument, but you’re also happy and you have a good attitude and a good morale. It’s just easier to work with those types of people. So, influencing the organization, some characteristics here when it comes to influencing, think about policies. You have policies, well sometimes you have to bend or flex those a little bit. You may have to plead your case why we need to think about the modes of operation, how you get things done that you’re required to do.

What’s the underlying culture in the organization that influences your project? What about your political alliances? Were you the project manager? How much political capital do you have or what political alliances exist that affect your project? So being able to recognize that information, differing motivations. You don’t always know why someone’s making a decision or trying to influence the decision of the project. Do you ever have those people that they ask you questions and they keep asking questions until they can basically get the answer that they want to go and say, well, in Joe’s project they’re doing it this way, so you don’t always know what people are after.

So it’s part of active listening is being able to hear and to really understand what’s the reason for these questions. Conflicting interest. You want Oracle and SQL? We’re only allowed to be on the project site from six in the morning to six at night, so that is our rules. But we have some team members that they’re almost done with the work and they just need another hour or two. They could be done with it and that would really help the project. But we have a conflict of interest. You can’t be there after six because it’s disruptive to the neighborhood, but the team wants to get it done because they’re almost done. So you’ve got some conflicting interest here. Or I want this change to happen, but I don’t want to pay for it.

So obviously that’s a conflicting interest. And then typically we find some power struggles, especially in a matrix environment, like a balanced matrix recall. The project manager and the functional manager share authority and they share ownership of the budget. So that can create some power struggles in the project of who’s really in charge. When it comes to influencing, we also have to consider the social, the economic and the environmental project influences. So like the marketplace and the economic conditions can influence how the project operates and what choices you get to make in the project. You might have environmental concerns, especially in construction where what you’re building could disrupt the environment or affect the environment. So there’s regulations and environmental concerns about the physical location where the work is taking place. There may be a social view of the project and its outcomes.

So how favorably does the public at large view your project? So that could affect how you manage your project. We have international influences, so if your project spans multiple countries, there may be some culture issues, some language issues, different economic models, different regulations and laws for each country or even different zones of one country. And then social influences that are going to vary among multiple zones or regions or countries that have an effect on your project, so they influence your project. There are four things we need to recognize when it comes to influencing as far as cultural and industry influences one, what are the current trends and practices that are as part of the culture, your organizational culture, but the culture at large where your project is taking place? What about the project management communities within your industry, within your organization? And how can you leverage those or learn from those to better manage and influence whatever the situation may be where you are? We also want to look at project management education. So how can I become a better project manager in this particular discipline? So if I’ve never managed a project in construction, I have a pretty steep learning curve to have that relevant discipline knowledge.

So I need some education application areas. Just what I was talking about is, what’s my experience in that application area? How does that application area work with the public or work with the culture in the organization? Or how is it affected by or how does it affect the stakeholders? So you think about it and the disruption it can have. When you do an It project or construction or healthcare manufacturing, how does that affect the stakeholders part of the culture? And then that can make them have a negative or a positive influence on your project. So these are all things that we want to consider as a project manager when it comes to influencing. Others can influence us, but we can also have an influence on them. All right, great job. I’ll see you in the next lecture.

4. Project Management Competencies

Once you’re certified as a project manager, as a PMP, you need to have continuing education. We looked at this a little bit earlier, so I’m not going to linger on it now. But we know that we have to earn PDUs. So earning the PMP is part of building your project management competencies. Once you pass the exam, and you will pass the exam, then you have continuing education. You have to earn PDUs. We can’t have some giving back PDUs where we volunteer or do writing that those are giving back, but we’re limited to only 25 of those.

35 of our PDUs have to come from continuing education, and it’s distributed across that talent triangle that we saw earlier in the course. So these are some things we’d be aware of that we want to continue to educate ourselves as project managers. There is a competency model that we should be familiar with, not only for ourselves as PM, as a project manager, but also our project team as they’re learning a new skill that we have to be patient and understanding that there is a natural progression that we go through as we learn something new. First off is where you’re unconsciously incompetent. You don’t know what you don’t know. So if you’ve never worked with that technology or that application or that discipline, there are things you don’t even know. You don’t even know what questions to ask.

So you’re unaware of a skill that you don’t have. If you’re consciously incompetent is when you begin to realize, hey, I don’t have this skill. And then consciously competent is where I’m going to actually make a choice and I’m learning and practicing the skill. Unconsciously competent is where you’re so good at doing the skill. You just do the skill without thinking, and then you have a chosen conscious competence, and that’s where you practice and maintain the skill. So an example here could be, have you ever worked with, let’s say, a mirrorless camera? All right, so it’s a mirrorless camera. It’s not a reflex lens. The camera is mirrorless. What you see is what you take a picture of. So if you’ve never heard of that before, then you’re unconsciously incompetent. You just didn’t know about it. And then now that you’re aware, you’re like, oh, okay, I want to learn about this mirrorless camera, and how does it take better photos or help me take better photos? So I’m consciously incompetent and then I learn and practice, and I take some classes and I go out in the field and I practice with this mirrorless camera, and I understand it more.

So I learn and practice, and then I’m so comfortable with it. You just walk around with that camera and anytime you see something interesting, you’re able to just quickly get to the setting you want and take a picture and you go on. So you’re unconsciously competent. You’re just really skilled at that because of experience. And then chosen conscious competence, that’s hard to say. That’s where you continue to develop and practice and maintain that skill. So some responsibilities and competencies of the project manager. Your goal is to satisfy task needs, team needs and individual needs. First off is the task needs. We want to get the work done. And then the team, what do they need? And then there’ll be individuals on that team that you have to work with and address their needs. Your goal is to liaison between the project team and the business strategy. If you recall earlier in the course we talked about the executives, the functional and operational and how projects span these layers. Well, this is the idea here that you’re the liaison between the team and the business strategy. The top 2% of project managers, they have superior relationship and communication skills.

This is from PMI little research that they did. So basically if you’re able to communicate and you’re likable, you’re going to be a good project manager. Basically we know there’s more to it than just that. But those are two attributes that the top project managers have. Let’s look at the project management values. There are three values that we should have as a project manager knowledge, performance and personal. So knowledge as you understand project management, performance as you can accomplish, you can get things done.

And then personal is your behavior, your effectiveness, your leadership and character. So those are three values. So knowledge, performance and your personal. One attribute of a project manager, it’s a recurring theme here is communication. Communication is paramount in project management. We have multiple communications methods, verbal, written, nonverbal. We’ll see those again in chapter ten in the Pmbok guide. As a PM, we have to be able to create and maintain and adhere to that communications plan. So we saw that as one of our planning processes already. We want to be able to communicate predictably and consistently. So there’s a cadence to communication. Every Thursday a status report, every Monday morning a meeting with our team. So there’s predictable and consistent that people like to know what’s coming without having to search their calendar for when are we going to meet or talk or whatnot.

I need to be able to understand the stakeholder communication needs. So you may have different needs because you have a lot of stakeholders. So some want to report on Thursday, others only want to know a rag rating, red, amber, green on how the project’s doing, others want lots of details. So how do I capture the communication needs and then satisfy those needs as the PM without tailoring a report for every single instance? So can I create a dashboard that has all those things in it and people can go quickly to the information they want? Making communications concise, clear and complete, so simple and to the point is important when it comes to communication. I want to share both positive and negative reviews. It’s not always fun to share negative reviews, but it’s important that I’m sharing good news and I’m being honest and sharing negative news. Nothing worse than waiting for news. And they’re delayed delay, delay, and you kind of have a sense it’s going to be bad news, and sure enough, it is, or they never tell you the bad news until it’s too late or late in the project. That’s the worst, right? That we want to have a consistent approach and we share positive and negative news, incorporating feedback channels.

What this means is that as I get feedback from stakeholders and I want that feedback, how can I use that to better manage the project? So I want that feedback. And I do the same thing for stakeholders and vendors and my project team. That project team members need to know, are they doing a good job? Are they meeting expectations? Just as you want that from stakeholders, the team wants that as well. And then relationship, it’s very hard to say. Building relationships is important. And we do that by networking. That we want to develop a network that we aren’t just isolated, that we know other project managers, and we know who functional managers are, who management is, and we network. And that’s helps us in the project. We can learn from one another, makes it better to influence and to get resources and to ask for things as we learn about people. So communication is paramount. All right, good job.

5. Technical Project Management Skills

Technical project management skills. There are three types of skills or application here, project management skills that we need to know when it comes to the technical nature of our project. First one is we have the ability to apply project management that we understand project management and how to do project management, just the mechanics of how do we initiate, how do we plan, how do we get things done and so forth. The second thing here is the knowledge areas are technical project skills. So you think about the activities that you do in defining scope or in creating a schedule or cost management or how do you do quality control. Those knowledge areas, chapters four through 13, those are really technical project management skills. Business skills are really things that are somewhat outside of project management, but they overlay project management. So business skills and business expertise are really part of technical project management skills. It’s outside of the domain of the exam, but they are useful in that I can negotiate and that I communicate.

 I understand business value, I understand return on investment, I understand political capital, I understand the sales process. So that helps in the project management. So why that’s not a PM process? It certainly helps me better manage the project and to better operate in the organization technical project management skills. So some critical PM skills that we need as project managers. In this role of the project manager, I need to understand what are the success factors. So what are the KPIs, the key performance indicators? Schedule management. You got to be able to create a schedule to follow a schedule, to do some forecasting. So schedule management, chapter Six in the Pinbox, what are the financial reports? So how do I track new audits and create financial reports? How do I show cost variances and how do I do cost aggregation and reconcile costs from what was planned to what was experienced? So, chapter Seven in the Pinball guide issue log maintenance.

So issues, when identify issues, they’re documented in an issue log and then we have an issue owner, a target date, what the characteristics are, and throughout the project, throughout the project we have to update that issue log. When new issues are found, when there’s changes to existing issues, when we have a resolution, when an issue needs to be escalated, that’s all part of that issue log Maintenance I want to tailor the techniques and methods. So we talked about this earlier about tailoring that. The 49 processes, I don’t have to do all of them. I do the most appropriate process and then each one of those processes I do to different depths. So that’s the tailoring I want to plan thoroughly and prioritize requirements and I want to be able to manage schedule cost, resources and risk in my industry, in the project management industry, I want to stay relevant. So this means training, not only training and project management, but training in that discipline. So I have product and technology relevance.

I understand what the project is creating. I want to know about new and changing market niches and standards, technical support tools. I want to learn about those that are unique to my organization and my discipline. What about the economic forces that affect my organization, my company and the immediate project? What influence? Influences are affecting the project management discipline? So we’ve seen this in recent years with agile, adaptive and lean and scrum. What about process improvement and sustainability strategies? That these are all ways as a project manager that I stay relevant to what’s happening as a project manager in my particular discipline. All right, great job. Keep moving forward.

6. Strategic and Business Management Skills

As a project manager, we do need to have some strategic and business management skills. This means we have the ability to see why some projects are selected and some are not, why our project is selected and how it fits into the organizational vision, how it supports strategy and what the organization is trying to achieve through our project. So there are three key things that we need to know about strategy when it comes to strategy and business management skills. First off is just the ability to see a high level overview of the organization, to see what the organization, its purpose is, why it exists in the marketplace, and then how the organization operates.

Order in, order out. How does it create a profit? How does it create business value? How does it provide services for its customers or stakeholders? The second thing we want to consider is the ability to effectively negotiate and implement decisions. As a project manager, we need to be able to make decisions.

We need to understand the goals of a project, the requirements of a project, and then make decisions. Often we just need to make a decision, right or wrong, make a decision and go with it. One of the worst things we can do is nothing. So make a decision and go. The third thing that we need to understand here is the knowledge of other functions. I’m talking about finance, marketing, operations, deployment, the logistics of your organization. So we need more than just the project management skill set. We need to have some insight into how does our project work in the organization and then how does the organization operate. Business Knowledge there are three things we need to know when it comes to business knowledge strategy, team and value.

Strategy is we need to be able to explain how our project supports the business strategy, the tactics, the objectives. So what are the business aspects of your project? How does it support the role and the goals of the organization? Teamwork we want to be able to work with others. We have to be able to work with others as project managers. So this means the project sponsor, the project team, subject matter experts, vendors, consultants. You have to be able to get along with one another, but be able to do teamwork in light of the goals of the project and then value. How does the project support business value and how can you most effectively maximize business value? If we want to look for opportunities and opportunities are positive risk opportunities where we’re going to get a return on investment. So how can we maximize business value? Business skills in the organization?

So some skills that we need to know and how it fits into any organization. We need to understand strategy of the organization, the mission, what are the high level goals and objectives and how does our project support that? What products and services does the organization create and how does our project affect those or influence those? What about operations? What’s the day to day operations like and how does the project fit into that or potentially disrupt that? So what are the operations? What’s the market condition like and how does that affect your company? So you think about your discipline. Is it very competitive downturn in your marketplace? So what’s the market like as far as your organization and the application areas it touches? Then how does that affect how you approach project management? Time to market factors is something we need to consider.

For example, if you are a software development company, there might be a time to market factor as a determination whether we initiate a project or not. It’s how long does it take to create that product in order to get it to the marketplace, we have to consider things like the marketplace window, our competition, what’s the marketplace like? How crowded or saturated is the marketplace now? Is this a fad or a trend? Do we need a short term or a long term solution? So these are all things that factor into business skills and the organization project management skills and business skills have some overlap. As you might imagine. We have risk and issues. There are financial implications. So you have a budget and cost estimating. We’ll do some cost benefit analysis coming up in module four in the Pinbox, where we’ll look at net present value and return on investment, present value and future value, but also business value. We’ve talked a lot about business value already. How do we have benefits realization? How do we set expectations and strategies and to get a return on investment? And then how do we balance scope, budget, schedule and quality? So that is true in business and in projects. All right, good job. Keep pressing forward. I’ll see you in the next slide.