Module 7: Paper

Managing and being the leader of a project is a complex undertaking that requires years

of experience and knowledge to handle efficiently. The complexity and planning that go into

managing a project effectively means that there is more than one factor that goes into making

these projects move smoothly and efficiently on the track to completing the goal. The project

manager has to be able to manage his team, have excellent time management skills, and solid

fundamentals. Our course has covered more than these four factors, but I would argue that they

are more important than the others and are vital to the success or failure of a project.

The first factor I will discuss is the need for a leader to be able to effectively manage their

team to bring the best out of them and help develop their skills to better serve the needs for your

project. However, before a leader can begin to concern themselves with helping their team

develop and managing them, the leader must make the choice about who has the required skills

and aptitudes to be brought into the project team. This is a crucial step in the project management

world because having the right team can make or break a project’s success. Even one team

member within the team can have a snowball effect or negative consequences for a project. If a

team member is unable to pull their weight, either due to the fact that they lack the required

skills, or they lack motivation, then the other team members are forced to pick up the slack and

feel more pressure and the quality of their work could suffer as a result. This is especially true if

the project has a tight deadline and allows for little mistakes and time must be managed

effectively and efficiently. Once the project leader has chosen his or her team that best fits the

needs of the project, he or she must continuously manage them and help them develop their skills

over the course of the project’s life span in order to get the most out of their team. This further

development of a project leader’s team increases their ability to work autonomously in the later
stages of the project with minimal supervision required. This is also an investment for the future

because the project leader can call upon these team members for future projects and can take full

advantage of the time and effort previously put in and it becomes a solid investment.

Speaking of time management, a project leader must be able to budget and schedule it

effectively in order to keep the project on track and their team on track with their responsibilities.

Leaders have multiple options when it comes to managing their time and their teams’

responsibilities. One of these is called a Responsibility Assignment Matrix and it can be used to

have a set agreement of who and what and who is responsible for each aspect of the project. This

helps the project stay on track by assigning everyone a specific task they are responsible for

which eliminates the chance of two people working on the same task or a task being forgotten all

together. This helps to make sure that the project is using the time allotted for the project

efficiently. Another thing the project manager can do to maintain deadlines and the project’s

schedule is by laying out all the milestones and deliverables that must meet in order for the

project to be considered a success. This helps your team visualize their progress moving forward

and helps them to see that they are making a tangible difference working on their part of the

project. Also, identifying task dependencies can pay dividends over the course of your project’s

lifespan because the project manager can lay out the tasks within a project that are interrelated

and dependent upon one another. This can help identify which tasks can be worked on

simultaneously and which tasks must wait on others to be completed. This saves the team time

because there won’t be any mix-ups about the interdependencies of tasks and waiting for others

to complete their tasks for you to be able to work on their own. At the end of all this time

management, a project leader can expect their project to be completed before or on the deadline
and avoiding cost overruns and penalties due to needing more time. This also helps preserve the

reputation of your organization because you build the reputation of completing projects on time.

When examining what fundamentals are required for a project leader to succeed, I would

argue that the most important ones are as follows; knowing the strengths and weaknesses of you

and your team and knowing the phases of a project. The most obvious of these is the importance

of knowing what you and your team can or cannot handle. Accepting projects that are outside

your area of expertise or ability runs the high risk of being a failure or being under delivered and

disappointing the project sponsor and their organization. This affects the reputation of your

organization and can lead to a loss of future profits and contracts. Of course, this doesn’t mean

that you and your team can never try something new, because they can and should do this.

However, this should be only attempting if the project leader takes the time to expand his or her

team’s abilities and develop them further into new areas of expertise. The project leader could

also bring in new talent to his or her team that has previous experience or expertise in working

with this new kind of project that is being offered to the team. This new member, or members,

can bring their new expertise to educate their fellow team members on the new procedures and

knowledge needed. These kinds of changes should not be done overnight, however, and must be

given ample time to be implemented. I would argue that it is best to prepare for new kinds of

projects before accepting them so that once you win the contract, your team can get right to work

and begin working on the project without having to delay the project by planning out how your

team must adapt to the new kind of project they just accepted. Knowing the five phases of

project management and what is to be expected of each one and the milestones they include for

your project is vital to keep a project flowing at a smooth rate towards the finish line. Doing

tasks of a project out of order and leading your team to do things out of order and ignoring the
phases of project management makes your project a messy undertaking that will likely lead to a

multitude of problems such as missing deadlines, cost overruns, team frustration, and poor

quality of work. As the expression goes, putting the cart before the horse is never a good idea

and will lead to task dependencies being skewed and messy. A more specific example of this

would be putting off the work breakdown schedule until phase four when it should have been

completed in phase two. The lack of the work breakdown schedule in phase two spells trouble

for a project because your team won’t have set task assignments and would instead be working

on whatever they please.

When I first began this class, I knew nothing about project management other than the

vague sense of project management I experienced doing school projects within a group. It never

occurred to me that project management can be so in depth and technical. I imagine that this was

due to my belief that project managers simply “made things work” rather than having technical

aspects and phases of project management that they have to adhere to in order to have success.

Now that I am aware of these in-depth features of project management, I find myself thinking

about how the super large companies use the techniques we learned in this class and how they

implement them during meetings and how these meetings are organized and how the teams

perform under these real-life conditions where the stakes are higher than ever. I also find it

interesting to think about if the project managers at these large companies do things “by the

book” like we learned in the textbooks for this class or if they have modified the ideas and turned

them into their own unique form of project management. I imagine that in the beginning of their

careers, they did everything “by the book” but after a decade or more of experience they would

find what works for them and what doesn’t. From this they would them create their own unique

system of project management formed after years and years of experience. In my experience
working on school projects, I find myself often adapting to certain situations to have the group

moving forward with the project and keeping it on track. Project management is not a “one size

fits all” solution by any means. Every project manager worth their salt must be able to improvise

and adapt to fit the needs of the project. I would argue that this is also where their unique blend

of project management techniques stems from.

The areas of project management that I feel I excel in are things relating to managing a

team and facilitating the communication within a team. In the past, I have generally taken a

management and leader role in groups and projects I am assigned to. I usually do this because

I’m not always comfortable with others making the decisions and leading a group rather than a

strong desire to be a leader. I feel like I am more of an asset to my team if I am leading it. I have

an excellent track record as a team leader and I cannot remember the last time a group that I lead

got less than an A on a project. As the leader, I feel as if I have more of an interest in my group’s

success because it would reflect poorly upon me if they failed under my guidance. Of course,

getting an A on a project is a nice touch on top of the feeling of pride as my group succeeds and

meets goals and deadlines with a high quality of work. I also pride myself on my ability to keep

my team members involved in communicating and keeping them involved within the group.

Having a team that communicates well is a must have for any project manager and can relieve so

many potential headaches and setbacks because every person within the group knows what is

always going on and happening at any given time.

Some areas that I can improve in are managing risk and things like cost management and

project scope. These are things that I had no official experience with before taking this class, so I

still have a lot to learn when it comes to implementing these into my management style. They are

important to the management of a project, so I will continue to use them and focus on their
development, but it will take some time. I think I am already on the right path, however, because

seven weeks ago before this class started I had no idea they even existed and now I am aware of

them and how to implement them within a project. I look forward to my first chance to lead a

project that is not within a classroom to gain real world experience and get the opportunity to

make a difference in my organization. Because I only have experience within a classroom

setting, cost management is never something that is addressed because it is a classroom and there

are no budgets or money to be held accountable for or to take into consideration.

In my opinion, my biggest area of growth in this class is learning how to operate within a

group that is purely online with no face to face communication. This was a first for me because I

have only ever worked in groups where we can meet in a classroom multiple times per week and

talk to each other. Having a team that you don't even know what they look like was a strange

experience at first, but it turned out to be a great experience. My team for this class was great and

gives me a lot of optimism for group work in the future. It was a unique experience and I had to

learn how to communicate with team members who I have never met in person or spoken face to

face with. Because of this, it can be difficult to gauge reactions and how they interpret your

interactions so there is a certain degree of guesswork involved but it turned out to be A-Okay and

I am excited to continue to take part in these online teams in the future.