Francine DuncanPresident & Co-Founder| FarVision Studios LLCLancaster County, Pa, United States
I'd like to encourage project managers to provide some training to project participants on what project management methodology means. For example: use of project plans, the role of a project manager, defining team roles and responsibilities, defining scope, working together as a team, using a change management system. Also, it is critical for project participants to understand the differences between operational management and project management.
I am in my third position as a project manager. In each position, I have found that even very experienced operational managers, unless they have been exposed to a formal project management methodology (such as PMI), become very intimidated when exposed to project management structure and tools. In particular, people who have little or no experience utilizing project plans may not understand the context in which these should be used.
I highly recommend that a project manager, when starting a new project with a new group of people, provide a seminar at the start of the project to educate the team. The important concepts to impart: organization, planning and communications are the cornerstone of any methodology; items such as project plans, requirements documents, change management systems, etc., are tools that help facilitate the workflow and greatly raise the success probability factor of any project; all team members must work to benefit the project; a project manager is an impartial facilitator whose role is to ensure the success of the project. Any decisions the pm makes are based on the project's objectives - not operational objectives but project objectives that should be agreed upon by stakeholders and documented by the pm.
Francine Duncan Project Lead Enterprise Web Solutions IKON Office Solutions Email: [email protected] Saving Changes...
Mark MullalyPresident| Interthink Consulting IncorporatedToronto, Ontario, Canada
Francine's suggestion is an excellent one.
In methodology implementations that we have done in the past, part of the implementation of the methodology has included quick reference guides, role guides, and checklists that take the detailed complexity of the project management guidelines (which is necessary on a practitioner level for the project manager, but is often both intimidating and far too detailed for project participants to need or embrace) and make them accessible.
Thanks for the great suggestion! We would all do well to take the time to explain not just the methodology, but how it will (and won't!) be applied on the project.
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