Exam 10: The Project Manager

involves empowering the project team to achieve the project objective and empowering each team member to accomplish the expected results for his or her area of responsibility.

A common barrier to effective delegation is that the project manager has confidence in the capability of others to do the work.

During the project life cycle, project managers encounter many occasions to employ their negotiating skills in interactions with the sponsor or customer, the project organization's management, subcontractors, vendors, and end users of the project's end product.The subject of negotiations can be contract terms and conditions, obtaining specific resources to staff the project, subcontractor prices, vendor delivery schedules, payment for damages, the cost or schedule impact of changes, customer approval of designs, the need for rework if quality standards were not met, the best approach to resolve a technical performance issue, interpretation of acceptance criteria or test results, approaches to get the project back on track if it is behind schedule and/or over budget, and so forth.

The project manager should involve individuals in decisions affecting them and should empower them to make decisions within their assigned areas of responsibility.

Capable project managers have high expectations of themselves and of each person on the project team.They believe that people tend to live up to what is expected of them.

The project manager leads by making things happen.

The project manager must ignore cultural differences into consideration when negotiating.

Project managers need to communicate regularly with the project team, as well as with any subcontractors, the customer, and their own company's upper management.

The project manager should try to learn about the personal interests of each individual by being intrusive.

The project manager must foster motivation through criticism of the project team as a whole and of individual members.Criticism should be carried out as soon as possible after the action that is being criticized.

A common barrier to effective delegation is that the project manager has a personal interest in the task or thinks she can do it better or faster herself.

The effective project manager has a commitment to limiting the training and development of people working on the project.

One way of encouraging project team development is to talk about the importance of self-development at project team meetings.

Finally, and most important, the task of organizing involves creating an environment in which the individuals may be motivated to work together as a project team.

Another thing the project manager can do is identify situations in which less experienced people can learn from more experienced people.

implies more than just assigning tasks to specific members of the project team.It includes giving team members the responsibility to accomplish job objectives and the authority to make decisions and take actions to achieve the expected results, as well as accountability for accomplishing those results.

A project manager needs good interpersonal skills to try to influence the thinking and actions of others.

A capable project manager provides opportunities for learning and development by encouraging individuals to assume the initiative, take risks, and make decisions.

is the act of allowing individuals to successfully carry out assigned tasks.

The project manager involves the project team in the functions of planning, organizing, and controlling the project to gain their commitment to successful completion of the project.