Let's start to introduce ourselves with the core of project management...First to resolve one thing, in software development process(or any process that need to be managed), you have to take active role - either to be leader or to be follower - you can not choose to not take any role...do not watch, just act in order to fulfill your role.We can not learn everything here, this blog post main idea is just to introduce us with some guiding lines.
These are small, but important starting points in project management life cycle. If you, as responsible project management involve these points in your every day work, you will increase changes to fulfill your mission and decrease number of errors made.
- ...Whenever you involve people in the plan’s development at the start of the project, you encourage their commitment to achieving it.
- ... The pressure to get fast results encourages people to skip the planning and get right to the tasks. This strategy can create a lot of immediate activity, but it also creates significant chances for waste and mistakes.
- ...Hold a post-project evaluation to recognize project achievements and to discuss lessons you can apply to the next project.if you don’t take positive steps to apply the lessons this project’s taught you, you’re likely to make the same mistakes again or fail to repeat this project’s successful approaches.
- ... Perform the feasibility study (this is a formal investigation to determine the likely success of performing certain work or achieving certain results).
- Make your objectives SMART, as follows:
• Specific: Define your objective clearly, in detail, with no room for misinterpretation.
• Measurable: Specify the measures or indicators you’ll use to determine whether you’ve met your objective.
• Aggressive: Set challenging objectives that encourage people to stretch beyond their comfort zones.
• Realistic: Set objectives the project team believes it can achieve.
• Time-sensitive: Include the date by which you’ll achieve the objective.
How to be an Effective Project Manager?
Questions
1. Are you more concerned about being everyone’s friend or getting a job done right?
2. Do you prefer to do technical work or manage other people doing technical work?
3. Do you think the best way to get a tough task done is to do it yourself?
4. Do you prefer your work to be predictable or constantly changing?
5. Do you prefer to spend your time developing ideas instead of explaining those ideas to other people?
6. Do you handle crises well?
7. Do you prefer to work by yourself or with others?
8. Do you think you shouldn’t have to monitor people after they’ve promised to do a task for you?
9. Do you believe people should be self-motivated to perform their jobs?
10. Are you comfortable dealing with people at all organizational levels?
Answers
1. Although maintaining good working relations is important, the project manager often must make decisions for the good of the project that some people don’t agree with.
2. Most project managers achieved their position because of their strong performance on technical tasks. However, after you become a project manager, your job is to encourage other people to produce high-quality technical work rather than to do it all yourself.
3. Believing in yourself is important. However, the project manager’s task is to help other people develop to the point where they can perform tasks with the highest quality.
4. The project manager tries to minimize unexpected problems and situations through responsive planning and timely control. However, when problems do occur, the project manager must deal with them promptly to minimize their impact on the project.
5. Though coming up with ideas can help your project, the project manager’s main responsibility is to ensure everyone correctly understands all ideas that are developed.
6. The project manager’s job is to provide a cool head to size up the situation, choose the best action, and encourage all members to do their parts in implementing the solution.
7. Self-reliance and self-motivation are important characteristics for a project manager. However, the key to her success is to facilitate interaction among a diverse group of technical specialists.
8. Although you may feel that honoring one’s commitments is a fundamental element of professional behavior, the project manager should ensure that people maintain their focus and should model how to cooperatively work with others.
9. They should be, but the project manager should encourage them to remain motivated by their job assignments and related opportunities.
10. The project manager deals with people at all levels, from upper management to support staff, who perform project-related activities.
Thanks to Stanley E.Portny and his excellent book Project Management for Dummies , in which these words can be found...
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