How Technical Should a Project Manager be?

Project Management is highly popular in two fields, one is IT and other is Civil Engineering works.  In both cases Project Manager is expected to be a technical expert. The idea is that if someone is to manage a project he/she should be competent enough not to be cheated or at least able to control the project activities. In its essence the idea is not bad. However there are two great handicaps regarding this requirement for project manager post.

The first and far more important is that being too expert in technical field like IT or Civil Engineering would compel the project manager to do his/her best in project. To this end the best thing done could be his/her technical competency rather than management of the project. Such a competent project manager would concentrate on technical issues and would be intervening (able to intervene) at every stage and technical step of the project. This would result in less and less time left for project management acts.

Secondly the great technical competency restricts one from thinking in different ways. This is created through continuous work in the technical matters along with success gained. Both of these transforms brains in such a way that such people remain thinking in a certain way.

There is no problem if a project manager has technical skills. It could be an advantage but the sector must understand that by putting a highly technical expert as project manager although it might be saving one additional position, it is not benefiting. Project manager has to think in ways very different from technical experts in his/her team. Project manager must take care of team management, time management and goal management. Hope a time would come when project management discipline will get its real place.

Progress Meetings

Many project managers and team members like to have progress meetings as often as possible. The reasons behind these meetings include sharing the progress/problems, seeking solutions from team members and also to have more networking. Most project managers consider it as a toll for better control. No matter how sincere each participant might be, the progress meetings do not come out to be as fruitful as expected. Following are few issues which must be addressed to make these meetings better.

i. Meetings frequency: Progress meetings for whole team should never be done on weekly basis as this leaves the concerned people involved in meeting preparation and meeting report writing phases only. A progress meeting once a month seems a better idea to get the results.

ii. Progress or problems: These progress meetings should not become problems-reporting meetings. People should be asked to communicate problems before meeting and come up with the solutions to the meetings and concentrate on reporting the progress and not problems during the meetings.

iii. Meetings’ attendees: All meetings should not include all members of team(s). The attendees should be selected based upon purpose of the meeting.

For many other important issues related to progress meetings, please visit https://www.createspace.com/3492429

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Project Manager's Tool

Being a Project Manager (PM) is sometimes taken as being Prime Minister (PM). Unfortunately regardless of team it is generally Project Manager blamed for any failure of a project. This makes him or her to stay on toes!

While worrying about success of a certain project the PM becomes jackal of all. He/she tries to do each and every activity and take role of every team member. Any project manager who finishes any project with this approach successfully is indeed not a project manager or simply not a manager even!

There could be many tools a PM can use to make situation better and D3* is one of them. It implies- Decide, Delegate, Do.

A PM must Decide what is to be done in project as clearly as possible, then he/she must Delegate the work to team members (most rare skill among PMs) and finally Do what he/she has to do i.e. Manage!

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