Project Managers have to juggle projects, multi-task, listen to stakeholders, gather requirements, coach/motivate a team, facilitate meetings and handle various other tasks.
What do you consider are some of the biggest challenges on your projects? Saving Changes...
1- In government project the main issue payments delay and cash flow.
2- Team availability.
3- Distributed teams and lack of communications.
Hi Khaled - The first 2 problems can happen in other projects too. For distributed teams, a clear communication plan that can bring all members in sync with project goals is a good starting point. Thanks for your inputs Saving Changes...
Karthik RamamurthyAuthor, Say YES to Project Success| Founder KeyResultzChennai, Tamilnadu, Tamilnadu, India
@Sajeev Kumar: Thanks a ton for posting a very relevant discussion question!
To most project managers, it does indeed seem an insurmountable challenge to do so much within very limited time and severely restricted resources.
You CANNOT always getthe optimal team.
The biggest challenges are to understanding and balancing what seems to be diametrically opposite stakeholder expectations.
I have had significant success with applying the 80-20 rule to prioritize and focus on the biggest challenges. For example the 20% stakeholders, risks, cost & time estimates, etc., which can have a BIG impact on project success.
The PMs and PMO teams I mentor are also handheld in using this principle and have achieved great results.
This technique was one of the project success techniques highlighted in one of the 52 chapters in my recent project solutions book.
There are two primary challenges across my years. The first is resources, but the hardest to deal with is leadership without a clear vision and the ability to say "no". I've worked many projects where leadership kept changing the priorities to placate clients, but in the process they caused disruption and delays. I had one project that should have lasted 8 months drag on for 18 because of this. I the case described, had leadership told the client "no, but we'll have your features in the next release" we could have done two major releases and more in the same time frame. Saving Changes...
Hi Deepesh - thanks for your input. Agree that getting full commitment from members in a matrix setup is a problem.
I don't understand why this can be a problem. An employee that is assigned to work on a project must work on that project you don't have to get any commitment from him/her. He/she can't choose not to work on the project. You don't have to ask him/her nicely to do his/her duties for which he/she is already paid.
I understand that it could be a problem if the employee works on more than one project and he does not have time for all of them but management should decide the priorities and if you project is considered lower priority then you have to accept that.
The only issue in my opinion is when the employee is also doing operational work and his manager only appraises him for the operational work. This indeed could be a big problem but this is management's fault. You should raise this as a risk and you are safe. :)
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1 reply by Deepesh Rammoorthy
Aug 07, 2019 6:52 PM
Deepesh Rammoorthy
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In your last two sentences you have hit the nail on the head .
" the employee is EXACTLY doing operational work and his manager only appraises him for the operational work. This indeed IS big problem but this is management's fault. and YES , they acknowledge it and don't do much about it .....But there's always the one scapegoat at the end of the day ...the Project Manager "
Saving Changes...
Deepesh RammoorthyICT Project Manager ( PMP®AgilePM®Certified ScrumMaster® (CSM®))| Australian Red Cross Blood ServiceTarneit, Vic, Australia
Aug 07, 2019 4:37 PM
Replying to Adrian Carlogea
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I don't understand why this can be a problem. An employee that is assigned to work on a project must work on that project you don't have to get any commitment from him/her. He/she can't choose not to work on the project. You don't have to ask him/her nicely to do his/her duties for which he/she is already paid.
I understand that it could be a problem if the employee works on more than one project and he does not have time for all of them but management should decide the priorities and if you project is considered lower priority then you have to accept that.
The only issue in my opinion is when the employee is also doing operational work and his manager only appraises him for the operational work. This indeed could be a big problem but this is management's fault. You should raise this as a risk and you are safe. :)
In your last two sentences you have hit the nail on the head .
" the employee is EXACTLY doing operational work and his manager only appraises him for the operational work. This indeed IS big problem but this is management's fault. and YES , they acknowledge it and don't do much about it .....But there's always the one scapegoat at the end of the day ...the Project Manager " Saving Changes...
Deepesh RammoorthyICT Project Manager ( PMP®AgilePM®Certified ScrumMaster® (CSM®))| Australian Red Cross Blood ServiceTarneit, Vic, Australia
Aug 07, 2019 5:56 AM
Replying to Adrian Carlogea
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@Peter Contreras and @Deepesh Rammoorthy
For employees, working on projects is a work assignment part of their job. Performing the project work is a job duty for the employee and as such it is an obligation. PMs don't have to get the employees to do the work as they already have the obligation to do it.
What bothers the PMs is the fact the overwhelming majority of them can't punish the team members that are not doing their work properly and can't threaten the employees with sanctions. This however doesn't meant that a low performing employee can get away with doing a poor job on a project.
As far as I have seen many companies however don't expect their PMs to manage the staff doing the work on the projects. Project management and people management are different things.
PMs can be in control of team members only if they come from the same line of work as they do. PMs that don't come from the same line of work as the team members can't understand the difficulties of the work being performed and would be unable to evaluate if the worker is really doing a bad job or not. Such PMs may end up asking the team members to do impossible things just because they don't understand what is possible and what is not.
PMs don't have to get the employees to do the work as they already have the obligation to do it.
NOPE ....Disagree with this . They absolutely sometimes have to cajole and beg and behave with them like children. Because they wave the big "oh I have operational issues" flag.
"This however doesn't meant that a low performing employee can get away with doing a poor job on a project."
They Absolutely CAN .....unless they report to the Project Manager as their Line Manager.
"PMs can be in control of team members only if they come from the same line of work as they do. PMs that don't come from the same line of work as the team members can't understand the difficulties of the work being performed and would be unable to evaluate if the worker is really doing a bad job or not. Such PMs may end up asking the team members to do impossible things just because they don't understand what is possible and what is not."
Disagree again . PM is more of an influencer , servant leader , orchestrator and has to look out for other job responsibilities outside of managing the technical deliverable on the project , like Risks , Stakeholders, Communications , Timelines and Scope . If they have a Good Technical lead in charge of managing the technical deliverable , they don't need to go too much deeper into the specifics as long as they have a high level understanding of the project . PM's don't need to CONTROL team members . They need to CONTROL the delivery of the project and all the tolerances set up by the Sponsor and Business Owners.
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1 reply by Adrian Carlogea
Aug 09, 2019 4:26 AM
Adrian Carlogea
...
"NOPE ....Disagree with this . They absolutely sometimes have to cajole and beg and behave with them like children. Because they wave the big "oh I have operational issues" flag."
Some years ago I worked on an IT support team of a large Australian utilities company and the functional manager told us that the support work takes precedence over project work. The incidents raised by the users had SLAs that should not be breached.
The availability of the functional team members to work on projects was dependent on the number of support issues that were raised by the users. If there were a lot of support issues obviously the team members did not have time to work on projects.
"They Absolutely CAN .....unless they report to the Project Manager as their Line Manager. "
For permanent employees working on a project is just a temporary assignment. Once the assignment is over the employee no longer works with the same PM unless the next assignment is another project managed by the same PM. Employees usually work with more than one PM, many times even in the same time as employees can work on more than a project at a time.
Since the relationship between the PM and the project team members is temporary the PM can't be a line manager, as the relationship between the employee and the line manager must be permanent or at least for an undetermined period of time.
There is also a issue of seniority. In order to be given first line management responsibilities the future manager must have work experience in the line of work of the employees the he would manage. So becoming a line management is a promotion. This is not the case with PMs who in many cases can start working in project management immediately after graduation.
So PMs are not real managers but individual contributors. PMs can become real managers if they are appointed line managers for a team or department of project managers.
I once saw a 23 or 24 years junior PM ,fresh graduate, managing a project where all the project team members were more senior than her in the organization and at a higher pay. If I remember well one of the team member was also a line manager so a real manager while she was just an individual contributor in an entry level position. It would be ridiculous and a humiliation for the team members to give formal authority to such a PM over the team.
@Sajeev Kumar: Thanks a ton for posting a very relevant discussion question!
To most project managers, it does indeed seem an insurmountable challenge to do so much within very limited time and severely restricted resources.
You CANNOT always getthe optimal team.
The biggest challenges are to understanding and balancing what seems to be diametrically opposite stakeholder expectations.
I have had significant success with applying the 80-20 rule to prioritize and focus on the biggest challenges. For example the 20% stakeholders, risks, cost & time estimates, etc., which can have a BIG impact on project success.
The PMs and PMO teams I mentor are also handheld in using this principle and have achieved great results.
This technique was one of the project success techniques highlighted in one of the 52 chapters in my recent project solutions book.
Hi Karthik, Thanks for that invaluable input. Saving Changes...
My biggest challenge is that the project is in critical process, but the human resources are not enough. Mainly because of the company's various projects between the development progress of conflict, resulting in the lack of coordination of personnel, but the project is imminent, this situation is really powerless. Saving Changes...
PMs don't have to get the employees to do the work as they already have the obligation to do it.
NOPE ....Disagree with this . They absolutely sometimes have to cajole and beg and behave with them like children. Because they wave the big "oh I have operational issues" flag.
"This however doesn't meant that a low performing employee can get away with doing a poor job on a project."
They Absolutely CAN .....unless they report to the Project Manager as their Line Manager.
"PMs can be in control of team members only if they come from the same line of work as they do. PMs that don't come from the same line of work as the team members can't understand the difficulties of the work being performed and would be unable to evaluate if the worker is really doing a bad job or not. Such PMs may end up asking the team members to do impossible things just because they don't understand what is possible and what is not."
Disagree again . PM is more of an influencer , servant leader , orchestrator and has to look out for other job responsibilities outside of managing the technical deliverable on the project , like Risks , Stakeholders, Communications , Timelines and Scope . If they have a Good Technical lead in charge of managing the technical deliverable , they don't need to go too much deeper into the specifics as long as they have a high level understanding of the project . PM's don't need to CONTROL team members . They need to CONTROL the delivery of the project and all the tolerances set up by the Sponsor and Business Owners.
"NOPE ....Disagree with this . They absolutely sometimes have to cajole and beg and behave with them like children. Because they wave the big "oh I have operational issues" flag."
Some years ago I worked on an IT support team of a large Australian utilities company and the functional manager told us that the support work takes precedence over project work. The incidents raised by the users had SLAs that should not be breached.
The availability of the functional team members to work on projects was dependent on the number of support issues that were raised by the users. If there were a lot of support issues obviously the team members did not have time to work on projects.
"They Absolutely CAN .....unless they report to the Project Manager as their Line Manager. "
For permanent employees working on a project is just a temporary assignment. Once the assignment is over the employee no longer works with the same PM unless the next assignment is another project managed by the same PM. Employees usually work with more than one PM, many times even in the same time as employees can work on more than a project at a time.
Since the relationship between the PM and the project team members is temporary the PM can't be a line manager, as the relationship between the employee and the line manager must be permanent or at least for an undetermined period of time.
There is also a issue of seniority. In order to be given first line management responsibilities the future manager must have work experience in the line of work of the employees the he would manage. So becoming a line management is a promotion. This is not the case with PMs who in many cases can start working in project management immediately after graduation.
So PMs are not real managers but individual contributors. PMs can become real managers if they are appointed line managers for a team or department of project managers.
I once saw a 23 or 24 years junior PM ,fresh graduate, managing a project where all the project team members were more senior than her in the organization and at a higher pay. If I remember well one of the team member was also a line manager so a real manager while she was just an individual contributor in an entry level position. It would be ridiculous and a humiliation for the team members to give formal authority to such a PM over the team. Saving Changes...
The biggest challenge I have faced on a project is selling the idea to the stakeholders after the clients and sponsors have agreed to the project. This tends to happen a lot on projects where the employees will think that the client is disjointed from the business and not in touch with the business needs and as a result have a "we don't need this" products/services/software/application to do are jobs, what we have works perfectly fine attitude. As a result this will have a knock on effect with how these stakeholders interact with the project and their commitment to the project. This attitude needs to be dealt with quickly as it is a self destruct attitude and will only contribute negatively to the project. A normally approach is to reiterate the business case, but this rarely works. Dealing with the ring leaders individually who are disparaging to the project is one effective way of dealing with this attitude.
I would say stakeholders and the people that they manage. Its the negative feedback from the people who are not directly involved in the project but who's work practises may change as a result of the implementation of the projects if the objectives of the project are realised. The are people who are somewhat resistant to any change in their work practises. Saving Changes...
