A project is unique and one of a kind, differentiating it from production, which is repetitive. A production line, once it’s set up, goes on producing more and more of the same item. This is purely mechanical. Not so with a project! No wonder project managers are entirely different from production managers.
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The project manager is truly the heart and soul of a project. S/he does not have a fancy title within a company, but is in effect the virtual chairman of a company for a specific project, commanding scores of people and having budgetary responsibility for perhaps millions of dollars if in charge of a so-called mega-project. This is usually without much formal authority! Yet, the project manager is expected to complete the project successfully, within time and budget, to specified quality.
Perhaps far more projects fail than succeed. Unfortunately, most of the management literature is full of success stories. We have focused instead, on failures, disasters and even collapse of companies, so much so that reviewers labeled us as disasters! But failures hold valuable lessons—if we listen.
A truly successful project manager is a rare and valuable commodity, but can be a bargain almost at any price. The stakes involved are high. Just one day’s delay on a billion dollar project could well cost upwards of $2 million! For that very reason, it is the project manager who can make or break the project!
Are project managers born or made? Perhaps born, but they acquire hands-on experience on the job.
Of course, project managers can be trained. (I know, because I’m training some!) Most management is by projects, and project management seems to be one of the fastest growing professions (according to a 2001 Fortune cover story). There is even a talk of an MBA in Project Management. Yet, we know surprisingly little about project managers and the skills they must have. My present series of articles is specifically designed and tailored to address this. The irony of project manager’s lack of broad-based knowledge is that project management, in sharp contrast to the traditional functional management, is fundamentally leader intensive. It is not possible to overestimate how vital leadership is in project management. Project leaders have a tremendous impact on team building, motivation, effective time management and realistic target setting for their team.
A project manager can be likened to the captain of a ship or pilot of an aircraft. While at sea or in the air, quick and decisive action is absolutely imperative. Action must often be taken on the spur of the moment, despite incomplete data and information. Further, the crew must implement these decisions without any question or delay. Of course, if time permits, a good project manager will try to achieve a consensus decision with the project team, so team members feel it is their decision, too!
Finally, the project manager may also be likened to the conductor of an orchestra, which can produce superb music only if all the musicians play in absolute unison, following the (baton) lead of the conductor. The conductor succeeds only because of direct and instant communion with every member of the orchestra. The India-born conductor, Zubin Mehta, is a classic example. He performed brilliantly for the United Nations in 1984, and I was fortunate to be there. At the end of the performance, the audience burst into tremendous applause, recalling Zubin back to the stage again and again. Ultimately, he directed his orchestra to stand and said: “Ladies and gentlemen, we are delighted you have admired our performance. It was all a result of perfect harmony. Why can’t you do the same?” (Remember, the audience was made up of UN members.) What a wonderful finale to an outstanding performance!
The project manager needs exactly what Zubin Mehta needed, i.e., clear, direct and instant communication with all members of the project team. Most importantly, the project manager and the team must develop a level of trust and comfort with each other in single-minded pursuit of project goals. Project management is basically a people management process. The skills that separate successful project managers from unsuccessful ones are rarely technical, but human! These include teambuilding, leadership, motivation, time management, meeting skills and—above all—(informally) managing a diverse, interdisciplinary team.Unfortunately, for most project managers, these skills are rarely taught. At a recent national meeting of the Project Management Institute (USA), a noted consultant presented a paper entitled, A Survival Guide for the ‘Accidental' Project Manager.
Successful project managers are kingpins, not kings. They dare not order their people around in an autocratic fashion, for that approach would surely lead to disaster! They are the boss only in a loosely defined way. In fact, they may not even have the authority to conduct performance appraisals or offer rewards to their team members. As a result, their management style must be one of persuasion and influence. In their personal backgrounds, project managers are likely to be engineers or specialists in certain technical fields, but they might have to forget their technical backgrounds while managing a project! Is that almost impossible? Stay tuned!
About the Author
A chemical engineer by profession and a project manager by experience and design, Dr. O.P. Kharbanda teaches essential coursework in the Masters of Business Administration program at Bajaj IITP (India) and at Rushmore University. MBA students worldwide use his 29 finance and management books as reference works. Nearly half of these titles relate to project management. Dr. Kharbanda has years of experience as a project manager on projects in the USA, United Kingdom and particularly in his native country of India.
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"Conventional people are roused to fury by departure from convention, largely because they regard such departure as a criticism of themselves." - Bertrand Russell |
