Everyone talks about MBA institutes and young college graduates aspire to complete their management degrees in anticipation of a good high paying job. However, among the MBA graduates how many are really good at managing important and often critical projects?
How many of the MBA institutes really bother to teach the important principles of managing projects?
Project management is a key skill that affects the success of a project. There are certain techniques and guidelines that can be learnt and applied effectively to ensure that a project is successful.
PMI or Project Management Institute is a non-profit organisation based in USA that provides standards, guidelines and methodologies for project management and related disciplines. They also provide certification in project management like PMP (Project Management Professional) and CAPM (Certified Associate in Project Management). More about that later in this article.
The project management discipline according to PMI describes a project management life cycle that consists of 5 process groups. These are
- Initiate
- Plan
- Execute
- Monitor and Control
- Close
These always occur sequentially and in the same sequence as described above.
The project life cycle is not the same as the product lifecycle.
For example the Software Development Life Cycle or SDLC is a type of application or product life cycle that consists of the following steps as show below.
| FEASABILITY |
| ANALYSIS |
| DESIGN |
| IMPLE-MENTATION |
| CONSTRUCTION |
Project management life cycle can be mapped to product life cycles in the sense that each phase of the product life cycle will include the project management life cycle consisting of the process groups being executed in sequence.
| FEASABILITY |
| ANALYSIS |
| DESIGN |
| IMPLE-MENTATION |
| CONSTRUC-TION |
Product life cycles typically start with feasibility and progress right through launching, maturity and retirement. The 5 process groups of the PM life cycle are used throughout the phases of any product life cycle wherever projects are initiated and executed.
A project is defined as a temporary endeavour that has a beginning and an end. An operation, on the other hand, goes on continuously and could be the end result of a successful project that results in an ongoing operation.
It is a well established fact that one of the most important process groups is the Planning process group because that decides pretty much how successful a project is.
In addition to the project management life cycle there are 9 different knowledge areas.
These consist of the following:
- Integration Management
- Scope Management
- Time Management
- Cost Management
- Quality Management
- Human Resource Management
- Communication Management
- Risk Management
- Procurement Management
Among the knowledge areas, communication management is the most important. It is a well established fact that project managers spend about 90% of their time in communication.
What is communication? It consists of the following:
– Listening
– Questioning
– Fact finding
– Educating and training
– Resolving conflict
– Negotiating
– Persuading
– Summarizing
As you can see, communication is more than conveying information. It requires a lot more understanding of the process including the barriers to communication and how filtering takes place.
As an example, when I was managing a global project involving teams from multiple countries, including a team from Japan, I was faced with several complex situations. Not only was there an element of different time zones but there was also the issue of different cultures and languages to contend with.
Communication even with teams in one language and culture is difficult. Adding other variables like language, culture and time zones makes it even more complex. I therefore had to apply creative solutions to resolve issues.
For example, in addition to emails, phone calls and videoconferences I had to actually meet face to face several times with key people to make sure there was no miscommunication and that everyone knew what was expected of them and had access to knowledge that they needed to have.
In one case, training sessions had to be conducted in the local language and interpreters had to be hired who could do the translation in real time.
The importance of communication cannot be stressed. One of the first processes that happens during project initiation and that is part of the communication knowledge area is that of identifying stakeholders.
Stakeholders are entities, people or organisations that are affected by a project either positively or negatively. The key to identifying stakeholders is to develop a strategy to manage their expectations. Without a well laid out strategy, the chances of a project being successful are bleak.
Among the most important stakeholders in a project are the beneficiaries or users of the product, service or result that the project delivers.
Let’s look at a recent example. Everyone is talking about the Commonwealth games and the controversies surrounding it. If strong project management processes were followed, the Identify Stakeholder process would have identified the key stakeholders and strategies could have been developed to manage their expectations.
The important stakeholders like athletes, the local residents, the countries represented, the organising committee or body, the spectators and the Indian public at large are all important stakeholders. If their expectations were properly managed, various scenarios could have been developed and strategies for managing risks could have been deployed. Obviously this step was missing.
Another example is the Nano project in West Bengal. The most important stakeholders were the landowners who were badly managed. Although the Tatas managed to recover by quickly identifying alternatives, a lot of time and money was wasted.
PMI in a recent study in June 2010 found out that there is a great gap between demand and supply of project managers and this is causing a business loss of almost US$4.5 trillion worldwide. In India, there is expected to be a surge in demand for certified project managers by 25% during 2011-12 just in the infrastructure sector.
PMP certification is an ideal way of enhancing one’s career and exploiting the huge potential that exists. All you need is at least 3 years experience in project management and attending one 35-hour training program conducted by a certified institute or PMP.
Similarly, CAMP certification requires no experience but a 25-hour training program.
In short my point is that we need more professional project managers who follow rigorous and established project management processes and ensure that projects are a success.
Tremendous opportunities exist both for project managers and for training professionals and institutions.
About the author
Kishore Hosangady is an Executive Director at Enflexis Solutions Pvt. Ltd. a premier consulting and training organisation. Among other things, they specialise in Project Management training based on the PMI methodology and have developed a browser based Business Intelligence product. He is also a certified PMP from PMI. He can be contacted at kishore.hosangady@enflexis.com
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