The goal of the course is to give you the tools to initiate a project plan, manage both stakeholders and relationships, organize their team, develop a project charter, and build a business case for a project. By the end of this course you will be able to: - Perform a project assessment using information from previous projects and lessons learned - Identify key deliverables based on business requirements while managing customer expectations - Perform a stakeholder analysis and create a management plan - Analyze and develop a project organization - Create a project charter - Explain the business case for a project and calculate Net Present Value - Inform stakeholders of the charter and ensure all parties know the deliverables and expectations As part of the course, you will prepare organization charts, create a Stakeholder Register, and write a Project Charter based on an engineering project in a provided Case Study. The Stakeholder Register will outline the key parties to the project, their concerns and how you will manage their expectations. Your Project Charter will provide the key guidance your team needs to understand the scope, requirements and purpose for the project. All of this will position you for initiating and planning your first project and/or understanding how you can maximize your contributions on your next project team. Rice Center for Engineering Leadership is a Registered Education Provider through the Project Management Institute (PMI)®. Learners who complete this course on the Certificate track will be awarded 12 hours of Profession Development Units. These are recognized by PMI for continuing education or can be applied toward the 35 hours of education required for the Project Management Professional (PMP)® certification. PMI and PMP are registered marks of the Project Management Institute, Inc.
Key Elements of Project Management
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From the course by Rice University
Engineering Project Management: Initiating and Planning
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From the lesson
Project Management Overview
What is a project, project management, project manager, and where do you start?
Meet the Instructors
Tom PhalenLecturer in Engineering Leadership, PMP
Rice Center for Engineering Leadership
Kazimir KarwowskiExecutive Director, PMP
Rice Center for Engineering Leadership
Now, let's look at two very important factors in managing a project
or two key elements of Project Management: Management and Leadership.
First, let's talk about the role of management in
a project and how it's different than leadership.
I like in the management aspect of
project management as the blocking and tackling of a project.
The technical aspects of getting the project done,
creating schedules, charts, managing people in time.
This is what managers do.
But leading a project is different.
Leadership is different.
A leader creates the vision and motivates the people to accomplish the task required.
Yes, leaders do perform management tasks but the thing that sets leadership
apart from management is the ability to motivate
people and it create and communicate a vision.
You heard about this earlier in
the Engineering Leadership Specialization but
here is the place where you put it into practice.
Effective project managers utilize a plethora of
both management and leadership skills if they are to successfully manage their project.
Some leadership skills that are common among
successful project managers are creating and focusing on a vision,
guiding and influencing the team,
developing the teams skills and abilities, encouraging innovation,
inspiring trust,
motivating inspiring the team and doing the right thing, just to name a few.
Leadership challenges the status quo.
As a manager, your role has
similarities to leadership but is distinctly different expectations.
Remember, managers direct people and their behavior.
Leaders work with others to create solutions.
This is where your technical expertise comes into play where you'll be expected
to direct people using your positional power, administrate the project,
focus on systems and structure,
focus on near-term goals,
accept the status quo,
and do things right as opposed to do the right thing.
Management focuses on operational issues and problem solving.
You'll find that you need to be able to perform both leadership and management roles.
The emphasis you place on one area will shift significantly as the project moves forward.
If you look at the project as a graph with the team performance
on the Y-axis and your management and leadership skills on the X-axis.
During the process, you'll find that you'll be using
both management and leadership skills to get things done.
But most successful project managers find
the optimum level or the mix between management and leadership
and involves equal parts of each and the ability to
utilize multiple styles of leadership cater to each situation.
Some of the leadership styles typically seen in project management
are Laissez-faire where the team members are left to make their own decisions.
Transactional which is focused on rewards.
You do something and then you get a reward.
Servant leadership putting other people first.
Transformational which includes empowering others and encouraging innovation.
Charismatic having the ability to inspire others.
And Interactional which is a combination of all of these combined.
Technology and systems help in managing the mechanics of project management.
But you'll need to rely on your leadership skills to help get things done.
To talk to people, motivate the team and use
your interpersonal and soft skills to help smooth
over anything that can't be managed until the project is
completed and both management and leadership aspects are complete.
Think of it this way, managers manage projects and leaders lead people.
But in order to for a project to be successful, you need to be able to do both.
So, now that we know that the project manager is responsible for
the management and leadership of the project, what does it truly mean?
What are the expectations?
Let's look at some of the roles of a project manager both as a manager and a leader.
As a project manager,
you'll be expected to identify the requirements of the project.
What does a client actually want? How will it be delivered?
Address the needs, concerns,
and expectations of the project's stakeholders.
Deliver the desired result to your stakeholders once the product is actually complete.
Plan and execute communications to your stakeholders throughout the project.
Making sure you keep them informed and comfortable with the status of the project.
The product manager will do all this while
managing the competing project constraints of scope,
quality, schedule, budget, resources and risk, just to name a few.
This is a lot of responsibility.
So, how you do this as the project manager?
You will lead the team,
create the vision of success,
and communicate that vision to the project team,
inform the project's stakeholders.
As I said before, keeping the project stakeholders informed is critical.
Link the strategy to the execution of the project.
This means taking the project management tools
and plan and turning it into a complete project.
Established with the stakeholder needs in mind the scope, budget, and schedule.
And manage all of these functions throughout the course of the project.
I refer to the scope,
budget and schedule as the Iron Triangle.
If you think of your project as an equilateral triangle,
where each side must be equal,
any change to one side automatically impacts the other two.
If you increase your scope,
it will increase your time or your schedule and cost.
If you decrease your budget, your costs,
you'll have to reduce your scope which will decrease your time and schedule.
This is a simple way to consider changes to
any one area and how this will affect the other two.
So, what are the factors might influence your project?
These factors can be both internal or external but either way
they'll make an impact on
how your project runs and will be managed by the project manager.
We call these enterprise environmental factors
and these apply to every project management process.
You'll see this throughout the entire process.
Let's look at a project and some of the common environmental factors that
need to be considered. Organizational culture.
This includes structure and governance,
the rules of the organization,
the geographic distribution of your resources,
where are your materials and people located or
are they collocated or are they situated around the world?
Infrastructure. What already exists inside the organization?
Is there a department or office that can help,
are there people to assist you in this process or this endeavor?
Information technology software.
This consists of scheduling software,
configuration management tools, and automated systems.
The resource availability.
This includes contracting, purchasing constraints,
approved providers, contractors, et cetera.
Employee availability.
Do you have enough people to do the job and do they have the right skills?
Finally, other factors.
This can be anything from subcontract negotiations,
to shipping delays, to unforeseen weather incidents.
You may not be able to plan for these but you need to understand that they exist.
Remember, that all these factors play into the success of your project
and it is your responsibility to consider anything that can impact your success.
As a recap, the project manager leads
the project team to meet the project's objectives and the stakeholders expectations.
They work to balance the competing constraints or
restraints on the project with the resources available.
It takes tact, interpersonal skill, and technical expertise.
The project managers role is not technical that's up to your team.
But you need to have the proper skills and tools at your disposal to be successful.
Now, let's talk a little bit about program management.
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