December 3, 2001
Week one
Jeremy Vigil
Kenneth Walker
Implementing projects can be an overwhelming task. Many obstacles lay in wait. Seeing these obstacles ahead of time is a big step towards becoming an effective project manager. I will be discussing the obstacles that are waiting for you and how to avoid them. This information will be from personal experience. Even though, I have not worked as a project manager. I have many years’ experience being a supervisor. This experience can relate to project management because has a supervisor you wear many different hats. A skillful project manager does the same. You need to be a leader, a mediator, problem solver, and fortuneteller. Predicting the problem prevents future headaches. Being able to foresee future problems will determine if you are a proficient project manager or a great one.
Creating a plan is the best way to avoid project
failures. As you write out a plan you
can see obvious problems and address them with a stroke of a pen instead of
impacting personnel and the bottom line.
Good planning kept the NASDAQ running during the September 11th
attack. Gregor Bailar CIO of NASDAQ says "Having a plan in place to
respond to crisis immediately is critical." 1 Bailers effective
planning kept the NASDAQ running during a terrorist attack. Planning also entails preparing to have
problems, mistakes, and an occasional disaster. Don’t expect for everything to run smoothly. Murphy’s law says if anything that can go
wrong it usually does.
The best way to plan a
project is to get all affected departments to participate in the planning. I suggest to create a team of all
departments affected to help predict future problems. This has an added benefit of increasing communication between
departments and could solve current problems but don’t expect it to solve all
of your problems. People are human and
miscommunications do happen.
Don’t get caught sticking a
three-prong power cord in a two-prong outlet.
Dry runs are also needed to help your planning. These dry runs help find the not so obvious
problems that weren’t caught in the initial planning.
Upper management creates problems that
need tact and political skills. You
don’t want to overstep your bounds.
Determining your bounds quickly will help you in the long run. The company’s culture determines your
bounds. Some companies admire
assertiveness and ambition while others encourage creativity and
experience. Determine what your
company’s corporate culture encourages and use that to pick your fights. You are not going to win every battle.
Upper management is run by
politics so being a politician yourself will help in the long run. Typically upper management are not
flexible. If upper management were they
would not be a problem. Their
inflexibility creates the problem. They
set the guidelines, timetable, budget, and determine the corporate
culture. Some advice is “You should
resist pressures for a quick fix, accept uncertainty and ambiguity, and
recognize subtleties in what works and what does not.” 2 In other
words, be patient. Upper management is
an outside observer. You need to
explain what you’re doing and why what you’re doing works best. Be sure to let them put in their two cents
and make sure you use their advice.
They obtained their position by being diligent.
Restricted budgets are becoming more restricted nowadays because of the economic downturn. My first suggestion would be to overestimate your budget. It is better to end your project with a surplus then it is to end with a cost overrun. I don’t suggest making your budget to extravagant though. You need to find a healthy balance. You have to become a smart shopper and compare prices, but you also have to balance quality with economics. You don’t want to sacrifice quality of the product.
Politics plays a
large role in obtaining a budget. The
more upper management admires and respects you. The more they will trust you with a higher budget. However, the economy will dictate your
budget more than anything else will. If
the company is doing well financially, the more money you will receive. No amount of politics will get you a better
budget if you company is on the verge of a bankruptcy so your only alternative
would be to become frugal. Restricted
budgets are hard to avoid during a recession.
Not meeting your deadline is a common failure. To decrease your restricted time, plan to
accomplish your task ahead of schedule.
This will allow for any problems that are unavoidable. Also, if you can accomplish your task ahead
of schedule this will increase you credibility. Not meeting your deadline can be a major set back especially in
the technology field. Take for example,
the video game console war going on this Christmas season. Sony has a significant advantage because
they completed their system last year.
Microsoft is lagging because they did not release their console at the
same time Sony did. “Sony has sold more
than 10 million units, meaning that even if 2 million Xboxes are sold during
the holiday season, Microsoft would capture only 20 percent of the market.” 3
Microsoft will not be able to keep up with Sony for a long time.
Customers pressure companies to offer advanced technology
faster. Customers put pressure on you
as a project manager to accomplish your task quickly. The companies only last today if they can provide advanced
technology on a regular basis.
Unfortunately, power struggles do occur. This is where the human equation comes into
play and you have to put on your mediator hat.
Power struggles are not very productive but the participants wouldn’t
agree. A compromise must be reached in
order to resolve this issue. A power
struggle is going on right now in congress over who should get federal money to
stop unemployment. Democrats believe
the worker should get more money while the Republicans believe small businesses
should get more money. They both
believe help is needed but because of the power struggle no one is receiving
help. This should be avoided during
your project. Usually both parties have
good intentions. It is your job to try
and make everyone happy. However, this
can’t happen every time. You can keep
some of the people happy all of the time and all of them happy some of the time
but can't keep all of them happy all of the time.
It is hard to predict personality conflicts but you must
try. I believe most personality conflicts
come from two aggressive personalities.
It is imperative you are able to determine everyone’s personality
traits. Only experience will tell you
whose personalities will clash. I don’t
suggest separating people with personality conflicts. People will think that problems are swept under the rug and not
dealt with head on. Dealing with
problems head on is preferable because it will rid the work environment of
tension. Normal working conditions are
stressful by themselves. Additional
tension will only harm productivity.
When two people
have personality conflicts, I would talk with each of the party separately then
determine a game plan. When a game plan
is determined, speak to both parties together and come up with a compromise. Inform both parties before hand they have to
give up something in this compromise.
To avoid personality conflicts, you should make sure there is open
communication. Having an open door
policy can do this. Inform everyone up
front to speak to the person they are having the problem with first but if they
feel uncomfortable speaking to that person then come have them come to
you.
People in general are resistance to change. There is no way to avoid this resistance but
you can hamper it a bit. One idea I
have is to maintain constant updates in a timely manner. You can get people use to the change if they
are well informed. One reason people
are resistant to change is because they don’t know what to do after the
change. Keeping the workforce informed
should hold off their fear. Another way
to ease change is do it slowly. You
will get less shock from the workers if changes are made in stages. Many changes all at once will create
backlash from the workforce and create stress.
Overall the best way to avert project failures is to avoid the easy way out. The only way to accomplish your task is through hard work and maybe some overtime. Also keep in mind to have some fun. You are the leader of the project and must lead by example. Patience is a key trait that will help you in the long run. Sometimes you have to take a step back to take two steps forward.
References
1 http://www.idg.net/go.cgi?id=559037
2 Across the Board; New York; Mar/Apr 2001; Paul C Nutt;
3 http://abcnews.go.com/sections/scitech/TechTV/techtv_xbox011113.html
Power Struggle Delays Insurance Deal for Jobless
Wall Street Journal; New York, N.Y.; Nov 28, 2001; By David Rogers;