leadership skills to effectively manage teams

(1) For a project manager is essential to have leadership skills to effectively manage teams but also problem-solving and results driven make a difference when handling remote global teams. When people are located in different parts of the world, time zone becomes irrelevant and setting clear objectives and deliverables make a team succeed. Then, leadership, problem solving and results driven are the most important competencies that project managers should develop to be most effective.

(2) I had witnessed the failure of a project, over and over as the time passed, it is clear for me that the common mistake in all the attempts was lack of project management.

In this course I have learned that everything can change, even the scope of a project, but if we cannot choose an appropriate methods and methodology since the beginning then we are going to fail and then start again without new knowledge to apply for our next attempt. Nothing could be worst that a failure without learnings to put on for the next try.

Integrated Business Plan (IBP) was the name of the project I observed fading, during almost 7 years, inexistent project management was the name of this blue story.

IBP started as a vision to have ONE master plan for whole the company, a strategic plan in which all the company could be focused on for the next 18 months. The purpose of this project was create a forecast with consensus of all different areas of the company and signed off by each one (Marketing, Sales, Demand Planning and Finance), not only was about have a budget or sales plan but also achieve opportunities and mitigate risks that could be going through.

Retail snacks companies does not possess control environments; also, this project was not mainly focused in IT solutions so PRINCE2 should be off the table since the beginning but not all the individuals in the team agreed if we can use trials in a controlled environment… agreed, sounds easy to said but in real projects is one of the most difficult things to achieve.

It is clear that an accurate project management with a PMBOK methodology put in place would be the best choice as the main problem to keep going through was human resource management.

The model used for this project was a waterfall, traditional and linear, with a clear scope, routine and repetitive monthly planning expectations but after all these years I have clear that Lean Agile Project Management (APM) would have fit more.

The seven principles of Lean APM would have helped this project as follows:

Eliminate waste – Stop wasting time in proposals that do not add business value.
Amplify learning – Iterate and learn, this project has a monthly opportunity for new learning.
Decide as late as possible – If it is not urgent and the team does not have much information, keep the options open.
Deliver as fast as possible – Give inputs and learnings to the stakeholders, deliver what is done.
Empower the team – Do not micromanage, let the team work and decide. The team has clear goals and deliverables… let them work.
Build integrity in – Always act with integrity to be successful.
See the whole – Do not miss the big picture, the project is a whole solution and not a piece of solution.

To conclude, this project would have been a success with a correct project scope management. Never skip method and methodology selection process because that’s basic knowledge for any Project Manager who owns the right soft skills (leadership, problem-solving and results driven).
References:

Project Management Institute, (2013). A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge , 5th Edition (Newtown Square, PA: Project Management Institute).

, John Wiley & Sons, Incorporated, 2013. ProQuest Ebook Central, Effective Project Management : Traditional, Agile, ExtremeWysocki, Robert K.

After researching various resources about project management it comes out that there are several personal factors or qualities that are essential in a Project Manager, without these traits no one can be a better or efficient project Manager.

To deliver the successful project a project manager should know how accurate he is in decision making and tackling the uncertainty in the project that he can face in the future. There always should be a backup plan that can be executed at the time of failure of previous plan
He must know how to prioritize things that are important .he must have the ability to look ahead he must have the skill of projection .he should have good intuition so that he can manage to make a valuable plan for the success of the project.
 

 

A project manager should have perceptual skills that help him to motivate his team so that team members can work more efficiently and with full involvement.
He should know how to keep himself and his team more focused on work and he must have excellent communication skills. Because most of the time communication is the key to make a project successful and effective.in a team of people from different regions or sometimes from different countries work so it is obvious for a project manager to have good communication skills to convey his opinion and strategy and get feedback.
A project manager must know how to build and maintain relationships with the team, management, and customers. He must have the ability to handle all the conflicts that can occur while doing the project.
Moreover, he should have an attitude of learning towards new things even after years of experience. he should have the ability to accept his mistakes and should learn from mistakes.
 

As I did a bachelor’s in computer science engineering, I did some IT projects during my internship in an IT company.one of them was an application for people to vote using an application in India. Which is called the E-voting system. We did this project in PHP language.
There are various methods that were used while selecting that project.
Number of factors that are needed to keep in mind while selecting any projects. project selection methods are of three types

 

1.Quantitative methods

 

Benefits measurement methods: -these are based on cost, budget, benefits factors.
Constrained optimization methods: -These methods are used on larger projects that are complex in nature. These include cost, staff requirement, time, calculations.
 

             2.Qualitative Methods

                       In these methods political, personal, safety, and security aspects, customer requests are included.

In our project, we had used the qualitative method while selecting that project.it included political interference a sit is related to the voting, it is also for the safety and security of the people because in India sometimes people do not want to go out to vote because of riots between two opposite political parties.
 

Phases of projects management that was used: –

Initiation: – in this phase the reliability of project is checked, and the project is initiated.
Planning: -at this phase, the outline of the plan is created which includes different aspects such as budget, time, feasibility study.
Execution: – at this phase, the project is implemented in the real work scenario
Monitor and Control: -in this phase the project is supervised, and update or modification is applied if required
Close: -After successful implementation, the project is closed and given to the clients
SDLC that was used in the e-voting project was the waterfall lifecycle. Which consists of different stages and each stage was executed with different iterations.

References:

Mulcahy, R. (2002). What makes a project manager successful? Paper presented at Project Management Institute Annual Seminars & Symposium, San Antonio, TX. Newtown Square, PA: Project Management Institute.

 

Meyer, W. G. (2012). Project selection and termination—how executives get trapped. Paper presented at PMI® Global Congress 2012—North America, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. Newtown Square, PA: Project Management Institute

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After researching various resources about project management it comes out that there are several personal factors or qualities that are essential in a Project Manager, without these traits no one can be a better or efficient project Manager.

To deliver the successful project a project manager should know how accurate he is in decision making and tackling the uncertainty in the project that he can face in the future. There always should be a backup plan that can be executed at the time of failure of previous plan
He must know how to prioritize things that are important .he must have the ability to look ahead he must have the skill of projection .he should have good intuition so that he can manage to make a valuable plan for the success of the project.
 

 

A project manager should have perceptual skills that help him to motivate his team so that team members can work more efficiently and with full involvement.
He should know how to keep himself and his team more focused on work and he must have excellent communication skills. Because most of the time communication is the key to make a project successful and effective.in a team of people from different regions or sometimes from different countries work so it is obvious for a project manager to have good communication skills to convey his opinion and strategy and get feedback.
A project manager must know how to build and maintain relationships with the team, management, and customers. He must have the ability to handle all the conflicts that can occur while doing the project.
Moreover, he should have an attitude of learning towards new things even after years of experience. he should have the ability to accept his mistakes and should learn from mistakes.
 

As I did a bachelor’s in computer science engineering, I did some IT projects during my internship in an IT company.one of them was an application for people to vote using an application in India. Which is called the E-voting system. We did this project in PHP language.
There are various methods that were used while selecting that project.
Number of factors that are needed to keep in mind while selecting any projects. project selection methods are of three types

 

1.Quantitative methods

 

Benefits measurement methods: -these are based on cost, budget, benefits factors.
Constrained optimization methods: -These methods are used on larger projects that are complex in nature. These include cost, staff requirement, time, calculations.
 

             2.Qualitative Methods

                       In these methods political, personal, safety, and security aspects, customer requests are included.

In our project, we had used the qualitative method while selecting that project.it included political interference a sit is related to the voting, it is also for the safety and security of the people because in India sometimes people do not want to go out to vote because of riots between two opposite political parties.
 

Phases of projects management that was used: –

Initiation: – in this phase the reliability of project is checked, and the project is initiated.
Planning: -at this phase, the outline of the plan is created which includes different aspects such as budget, time, feasibility study.
Execution: – at this phase, the project is implemented in the real work scenario
Monitor and Control: -in this phase the project is supervised, and update or modification is applied if required
Close: -After successful implementation, the project is closed and given to the clients
SDLC that was used in the e-voting project was the waterfall lifecycle. Which consists of different stages and each stage was executed with different iterations.

References:

Mulcahy, R. (2002). What makes a project manager successful? Paper presented at Project Management Institute Annual Seminars & Symposium, San Antonio, TX. Newtown Square, PA: Project Management Institute.

 

Meyer, W. G. (2012). Project selection and termination—how executives get trapped. Paper presented at PMI® Global Congress 2012—North America, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. Newtown Square, PA: Project Management Institute