Chapter 3

The Project Manager

Copyright 2018 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

The Project Manager
• The project manager can be chosen and installed as
soon as the project is selected for funding
• This simplifies several start up activities

• The project manager can be chosen later

• This makes things difficult

• Senior manager briefs (informs) the project manager

• Project manager begins with a budget and schedule

• As people are added these are refined
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Functional Management
• Department heads are usually functional specialists

• They have the required technical skills to evaluate all

members of their organization

• Functional managers:
• Decide who performs each task
• Decide how the task is performed
• Exercise a great deal of control over every aspect of the
work that gets performed within their area

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 Project Management

• Project managers are usually generalists (not technical)

• It would be very unusual for a project manager to have all the
technical skills that are used on their projects

• Project managers:
• Rarely they decide who performs each task
• They do not have the technical skills to evaluate much of
the work performed on a particular project
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 Comparing Functional
Managers & Project
Managers
Functional Managers Project Managers
need technical skills need negotiation skills
should be more skilled at should be more skilled at
analysis synthesis (combination of ideas)
use the analytic approach use systems approach
responsible for a small area responsible for the big picture
act as managers act as facilitators
responsible for a small area responsible for the big picture
act as direct, technical act as facilitators and generalists
supervisors

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Three Major Questions Facing Project Managers

• What needs to be done?

• When must it be done?

• How are the resources required to do the job to

be obtained?

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 Project Manager Responsibilities
• Responsibility to the parent organization
• Responsibility to the project and the client
• Responsibility to the project team

Responsibility to the Parent Organization

• Proper usage of resources
• Timely and accurate reports
• Keep project sponsor informed

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Responsibility to the Project and the Client
• Preserve the integrity of the project
• This may be difficult with all sides wanting changes
• Keep the client informed of major changes

Responsibility to the Project Team

• Because the project is, by definition, a temporary
entity and must come to an end, the PM must be
concerned with the future of the people who serve
on the team.

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Project Management Career Paths
• Might work on several projects simultaneously

• Small short-term projects train new project

managers

• Start on small projects and work up to large projects

• Experience as a project manager, is often seen as a

desirable step on the corporate ladder
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Sample Career Path
• Trainee:
• a six-month position to learn about project management
• Cost Analysis/Schedule Engineer:
• a 6–18 month team position reporting to a project manager
• Site Manager:
• a 6–12 month position responsible for a large site and reporting to a
program manager
• Small Project Manager:
• sole responsibility for a $1M to $3M revenue project
• Project Manager:
• responsible for $3M to $25M revenue projects
• Program Manager:
• responsible for multiyear projects and programs over $25M

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Special Demands on the Project Manager

• Acquiring adequate resources

• Acquiring and motivating personnel
• Dealing with obstacles
• Making project goal trade-offs
• Maintaining a balanced outlook
• Breadth of communication
• Negotiation

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Acquiring Adequate Resources
• Project budgets are usually inadequate
• Resource trade-offs must be considered
• Crises occur that require special resources

• Project and functional managers alike perceive the

availability of resources to be strictly limited and
thus a strict “win–lose” proposition. Under these
conditions, the “winners” may be those managers
who have solid political connections with top
management.

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Acquiring and Motivating Personnel
• Most project workers are borrowed from functional managers
• The project manager negotiates for the desired worker but
• the project manager wants the best qualified individual
• the functional manager decides who to assign

• The functional manager also decides:

• the skill level to assign
• the pay and promotion of the worker
• Worker will most likely return to the functional manager once
the project is finished
• Once workers are assigned to a project, the project manager
must motivate them
• The project manager has little or no control over pay and
promotion 3-13
Most Important Characteristics for Team Members
• High-quality technical skills
• Political, and general, sensitivity
• Strong problem orientation: Problem-oriented people
tend to learn and adopt whatever problem-solving techniques
appear helpful, but discipline-oriented individuals tend to view
the problem through the eyes of their discipline.
• Strong goal orientation
• High self-esteem: Individuals on the team should have
sufficiently high levels of self-esteem that they are not
threatened by acknowledgment of their own errors or by
pointing out possible problems caused by the work of others.

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Tuckman Ladder
• “Tuckman ladder” suggests that teams progress through the following
four development phases:

• Forming: Team members come together for the first time and begin
learning about their roles and responsibilities.

• Storming: Work on the project begins, but initially the team members
tend to work independently, which often leads to conflict.

• Norming: In this phase, the team members begin to establish team

norms and team cohesiveness develops. Individual team members
reconcile their behaviors to support the overall team, and trust develops.

• Performing: With norms and trust established, teams function as a

cohesive unit focused on accomplishing the goals of the project.

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Dealing with Obstacles
• Every project is unique
• The project manager should be ready to face a series of
crises
• A big problem is “scope creep”(change in the required project
scope)
• Good project managers are fire preventers hopefully, but
also fire fighters

• Early problems are associated with resources

• Later problems are associated with:
• Last-minute schedule and technical changes
• What will happen to a team when the project is completed?
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Making Project Goal Trade-Offs
• Project managers must make trade-offs between
the project goals of:
• Cost
• Time
• Scope
• Ancillary goals

• Multiple projects

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Relative Importance of Project Objectives
The trade-offs vary depending on the stage of the
project life cycle.

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Maintaining a Balanced Outlook (view)
• Hard to tell where a project is headed
• Outlook can change over the life of a project
• Technical problems cause waves of pessimism and
optimism (mood swings)
• Mood swings can hurt performance
• Maintaining a positive outlook is a delicate job

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Breadth of Communication
• Most of a project manager’s time is spent
communicating
• In order to properly communicate, the PM must
deal with or understand:
• why the project exists
• that some projects fail
• that support of the top management is needed
• a strong information network is needed
• they must be flexible

Negotiations
The PM must be a highly skilled negotiator.
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Most Popular Attributes, Skills, and
Qualities When Selecting PMs
• Strong technical background
• Hard-nosed manager (being tough)
• Mature
• Currently available
• On good terms with senior executives
• Someone who can keep project team happy
• Worked in several departments
• A person who can walk on (or part) the waters (to do
something that seems nearly impossible)
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Attributes of Effective Project Managers
• Credibility (example: technical credibility)
• Sensitivity (examples: political, technical)
• Leadership, ethics, and management style
• Ability to handle stress
• They must also have the drive to complete the
task!

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 Chapter 5

The Project in the

Organizational Structure
Project Growth
There are many reasons for the rapid growth of project-oriented
organizations, but most of them can be subsumed in four
general areas:

• Need for speed, market responsiveness, and

product flexibility
• Need for broader areas of knowledge in
developing new products and services
• Rapid expansion of technology
• Management inability to understand and control
large numbers of activities

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Organizational Issues Related to Projects

• How to tie project to parent firm

• How to organize the project

• How to organize activities common to multiple

projects

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Traditional Forms of Organization

1. Functional

2. Projectized

3. Matrix

4. Composite

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Projects in a Functional Organization
• Assign the project to one of the functional divisions
• More than one choice may exist
• If support from other areas is needed, they are expected to
help support the project

• Another way is to assign the work to all divisions with

the top management overseeing the effort

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 Figure 5.1 is the organizational chart for the University of Cincinnati, a functionally organized institution. If
U.C. (the “funder”) undertook the development of a Master of Science program in Project Management (or
perhaps an MPM), the project would probably be placed under the general supervision of the senior vice
president and provost (the “sponsor”), under the specific supervision of the dean of the College of Business
(the “project owner”), and might be managed by a senior faculty member (the PM) with a specialty in
operations management.

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Advantages
• Maximum flexibility in the use of staff
• Experts can be utilized by many different projects
• Specialists can be grouped to share knowledge
and experience
• Functional division serves as a base of
technological continuity
• Functional division contains the normal path of
advancement

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Disadvantages
• Client is not the focus of the activity
• Functional units tend to be oriented toward the
activities of that particular function
• No individual is given full responsibility
• Response to client needs, is slow and difficult
• Tendency to suboptimize the project
• Motivation tends to be weak
• A holistic approach to the project is not
facilitated (Example: the development of a jet aircraft is
complex and needs a unique approach)
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Projects in a Projectized Organization
• Projects have a full compliment of functions
• Each project is stand-alone
Figure 5.2 illustrates the projectized organization and its stand alone
projects. The organization is separated from the parent organization.

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Advantages
• Project manager has full authority
• All members report to the project manager
• Short lines of communication
• When there are similar projects, expertise can be
retained
• Strong and separate identity
• Swift decisions (quick decisions)
• Unity of command: the quality of life for subordinates is
enhanced when each subordinate has one, and only one, boss.
• Structurally simple and flexible
• Supports a holistic approach
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 Disadvantages
• Duplication in staffing (Example: duplication in technological support units)
• Stockpiling: People with critical technical skills may be hired by the
project when they are available rather than when they are needed.
• In “high technology” projects, workers tend to fall
behind in other areas of their technical expertise
• Inconsistency in policies and procedures: Administrative
corner-cutting is common and easily justified.
• A project takes on a life of its own: A disease known as
projectitis develops. A strong “we–they” divisiveness grows, distorting the
relationships between project team members and their counterparts in the
parent organization.
• Worry about life after the project is over: Example: Will team
members be laid off?
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Projects in a Matrixed Organization
• It is a combination of standalone projectized and
functional organization structures
• Matrixed project organization
• Keeps desirable features of both standalone and functional
projects
• Avoids some of the disadvantages of each type
• Can take on a variety of specific forms
• Depending on which of the two extremes (functional or
standalone) it most resembles. The “projectized” or “strong”
matrix most resembles the projectized organization. The
“functional” or “weak” matrix most resembles the functional
form of organization.

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 Strong Matrix
• The project manager may report to a program manager, or a functional
manager
• Control
• PM controls when and what employees assigned to them do
• Functional managers control who will be assigned to the project and
how the work will be done
In the figure, the project manager of Project 1, PM1, reports to a program manager who
also exercises supervision over two other projects having to do with the same program.
Project 1 has assigned to it three people from the manufacturing division.

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Weak Matrix
• Project might have only one full-time person, the
project manager
• Functional departments devote capacity to the project
• Primary task of the project manager is to coordinate
project activities carried out by the functional
departments

Balanced Matrix
• It is in between the weak and strong matrix
• May not be evenly balanced between them

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 Matrix Structure Advantages
• The project is the point of emphasis. PM, takes responsibility
for managing the project.
• The project has access to the entire organization for
labor and technology
• Less anxiety about what happens when the project is
completed
• Response to client needs is rapid
• Access to administrative units of firm
• Better balance of resources
• Great deal of organizational flexibility

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Matrix Structure Disadvantages
• With matrix organizations, the power is balanced.
Often, the balance is fairly delicate and fragile.
• Projects compete for resources
• Projectitis is still a serious disease
• Division of authority and responsibility is complex
• Matrix management violates the management
principle of unity of command (having one boss)

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Virtual Projects
• Virtual projects are those in which work on the project team
crosses time, space, organizational, or cultural boundaries.
• Facilitated by the use of the Internet
• Often organized as a matrix

Virtual Project Rules For Success

• Challenging and interesting projects
• Use volunteers: They’ll be more enthusiastic and dedicated to the
success of the project.
• Include some people who know each other
• Create an online resource to learn about each other
• Encourage frequent communication
• Divide work into independent modules 5-40
Projects in Composite Organizational Systems
• We see in practice is some combination of two or three or more
different forms.
• We might have matrixed projects that cross the various territories and focus on
customer preferences, or projectized if it is a single project, such as installing a
customer relationship management (CRM) software database for all the
territories.
• Composite form leads to flexibility
• If both functional and projectized divisions coexist in a firm, this would
result in the composite form shown in Figure 5.4.

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Selecting a Project Form
(Functional, or Projectized, or Matrix, or Composite?)

• Firms typically do not set out to pick an organizational

form. Rather, the structure evolves over time

• The structure is not static

• Rather, it changes as the organization, its goals, and its

environment changes

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Functional Form Best for…
• In-depth application of a technology
• Large capital investment, especially when that investment is
concentrated in one functional area

Projectized Form Best for…

• Handling a large number of similar projects
• Handling a one-time project that requires much control, but is
not focused on one functional area

Matrix Form Best for…

• Projects that require inputs from several functional areas
• Projects that use technology from several functional areas
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The Project Management Office (PMO)
• No project has ever been completed precisely as it
was planned

• Successful execution of a project is a complex

managerial task
• Requires the use of planning, budgeting, scheduling, and
control tools
• Contractual, administrative, and reporting duties must be
performed according to the law

• 60% of organizations have PMOs

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Purposes of the PMO
• Establish project administrative procedures

• Ensures the firm’s project portfolio supports its

overall goals and strategies

• Gradual taking in of project management practices

into the entire firm

• Facilitator of projects, not the doer of projects (not the

unit that completes the project)

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Forms of PMO
• A limited PMO that represents an information center,
reporting on project progress and assessing the
organization’s project maturity.

• At the next level, the PMO may establish project

management procedures and practices.

• At the upper level, the PMO may establish a resource

database and monitor interproject dependencies,
manage the project portfolio.

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Tasks of the PMO (Slide 1 of 2)
• Establish and enforce good practices
• Improve organization’s project management
maturity
• Improve project management systems
• Offer training
• Help with administrative details
• Establish a process for dealing with risk
• Determine if a project is a good fit
• Identify impact of changes on projects
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Tasks of the PMO (Slide 2 of 2)
• Conduct project reviews and audits
• Maintain and store project archives
• Serve as a champion to pursue project management
excellence in the organization
• Serve as a home for project managers
• Collect and disseminate lessons learned
• Assist in project closure

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 Project Management Maturity

• One of the key factors for improving the success rate of

projects is the organization’s project management
competency, known as “maturity”.

• It includes the standardization of project management

techniques, which increases the project success rates.

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 Project Management Maturity Levels
• In the first level, “Initial,” there is no formal process for managing
projects.
• The second level, “Repeatable,” has procedures in place for
planning, scheduling, tracking, and estimating.
• The third level is “Defined.” On this level, the firm has integrated
systems for tracking and managing projects, but are not routinely
understood and used for controlling projects.
• At level four, “Managed,” systems are installed and used to
manage and control projects. The project success rate is high.
• Level five, “Optimizing,” has integrated databases used to
generate information on the senior-management level as well as
for managers of single projects, programs, or portfolios of projects.

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 Five Steps for PMO Success
1. Identify quantifiable measures to prove
accomplishments (Measure the results)

2. Set a realistic time frame for results

3. Be sure to have resources needed to achieve goals

4. Establish credibility throughout the organization

5. Get the best people for the PMO

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 The Project Team, Example: A software engineering project
• Systems Architect: The systems architect is in charge of the basic product
design and development and is responsible for functional analysis,
specifications, drawings, cost estimates, and documentation.

• Development Engineer: This engineer’s task is the efficient production of

the product or process.

• Test Engineer: This person is responsible for the installation, testing, and
support of the product (process) once its engineering is complete.

• Contract Administrator: The administrator is in charge of all official

paperwork, keeping track of standards compliance, funder (engineering)
changes, billings, questions.

• Project Controller: The controller keeps daily account of budgets, cost

variances, labor charges, project supplies, capital equipment status, etc.
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