How many project managers are around?
There are many people out there with no project management certification or proper education who are doing a great job as a PM and better than many PMs by designation.
On a high level a project manager is a person who:
- Knows the objective of the project, deadline, allocated budget and works within these constrains.
- Identifies required resources and deploy them.
- Breaks the project into tasks and creates dependencies between them to get the timeline.
- Creates project documentation such as risk register, issue log, status reports, etc.
- Manages change requests, documents them, evaluates and gets approvals. A re-baseline follows if there is an impact on the critical path.
- Finally delivers the scope with a twist (most of the times).
Well, all people follow this logic on a daily basis and in most of their activities, but without putting these steps in a formal language. Some people are better than others in achieving their daily, monthly or yearly objectives. And some are not good at all. That means all of us are PMs after all and we vary on how skillful we are.
One of my favorite examples is a person who is preparing a special lunch for her friends. The lady’s name is Dana. She starts her day at X AM, gets her shopping done, prepares the food and then serves it at lunch time. Actually what goes in her mind is more complicated than my last sentence. Her decision on X AM was calculated based on a timeline of many dependent tasks that ensures that there is enough time to complete the main objective successfully.
She started planning for her next day project “Special lunch for friends” and said (This is project planning):
- The objective is to have 1 soup, 1 starter, 1 salad and 1 main course all ready at 2PM tomorrow. This is the scope and the deadline.
- I still have 100 DHS that I can spend for anything I will need to have this lunch. This is the budget.
- I will need some vegetables and other stuff. Just not to forget, I will prepare a requirements document with product description and feature lists. As an example, I will explain the need for tomatoes, red, ripe, but not soft. This is the identification of resources.
- Ok, so I will need to go shopping to get the resources that will take me 1 hour, cook the food that will take me 2 hours, prepare the table that will take me 10 minutes, rest for 15 minutes, serve the food at 2PM sharp.
So when shall I wake up X AM? (Project start date/time).
Let’s assume 2PM is when the food will be served.
1:45 to 2:00 is rest time
1:30 to 1:45 is table preparation+5 minutes slag.
11:30 to 1:30 PM is food preparation.
10:30 to 11:30 shopping time.
Then if I wake up 10AM I will be on the safe side. Therefore, X = 10AM. Got it!
Hold on! I think I spotted an opportunity here; I can start the project at 9AM, go for coffee with friends from 9:30 to 10:30AM and get some shopping advice from the soup expert Sara.
This sounds like a plan. This is the timeline, critical path and dependencies.
Oh tomorrow is Sunday and there is a possibility that 9:30 AM will be a rush hour in the coffee shop area. If there is heavy traffic, I can make the coffee time half an hour instead of an hour or keep the hour coffee time which will impact the deadline (half an hour delay, maybe more!).This is risk analysis.
She starts her day at 9AM per the plan and everything goes smoothly, no traffic, great coffee break, great soup advice and a decision to tweak the scope and add 1 more dish to the menu was taken. She evaluates the cost of 10 AED which can be absorbed within the budget, and evaluates the total time needed of half an hour which can be done in parallel to the cooking time (No impact on the critical path). Well it looks like that this change request is approved and added to the plan.
She finishes all tasks and delivers the special lunch at 2:15PM with the complete scope, within budget and almost ontime. Dana with her great sense of achievement is so proud of her successful project.
Dana is a perfect example of a successful project manager. She is just a normal person who delivers projects on a daily basis without the designation of a PM!
With this in mind, how many successful PMs are around you?
Chief Business Officer Weyyak.com at Zee Entertainment
9 年Barry, as they say no leadership training can make a leader.. I totally agree with your views... I personally have hired project managers without certification as they demonstrated the needful skills, the required exposure and the right attitude.. At the same time I encourage people to get certified and get the right term to the right act..
An interesting article that personalizes project management techniques and explains how they apply universally to managing tasks to get a result. That is the nature of projects. I hold a PMP, so I guess I am qualified to comment on the difference between certified and non-certified Project Managers (having been both). It is not the certification that is the differentiator. It is leadership. The professional Project Manager leverages the tools you illustrated, but communicates the plan...and the risks...to the other team members. It is a character quality, a measure of the commitment to the profession and to performance, not a certificate. The certificate is only an indicator (just as experience is only an indicator) of a level of investment and commitment. The documentation is boring, and there are many who can fill out forms. But to know which forms are important (and which are not); to build a team that understands why they are important to management; to build trust and a team that can execute and defend the project...that is the distinction. To deliver value through project leadership = project professional.
Chief Business Officer Weyyak.com at Zee Entertainment
9 年Rephinus, interesting views.. certification, specialized education and experience is a must.. As I explained in my previous comment you need more than your natural extinct to be a project manager by designation ..
Global Project Management Leader| Project Management, Sustainability | Independent Contractor
9 年"If one is not a qualified PM or does not hold any certification in Project Management and has years of experience, He/She is a seasoned lay-person (PM) and should not not comment as an expert in Project Management. It does not matter how it is justified, even if you have been a PM for 60yrs without PM qualification/Certification you remain a layperson. Layperson is a person who is not qualified in a given profession and/or does not have specific knowledge of a certain subject
Global Project Management Leader| Project Management, Sustainability | Independent Contractor
9 年If one do not a qualified PM or does not hold any certification in Project Management and has years of experience, He/She is a seasoned lay-person (PM) and should not not comment as an expert in Project Management. It does not matter how it is justified, even if you have been a PM for 60yrs without PM qualification/Certification you remain a layperson. Layperson is a person who is not qualified in a given profession and/or does not have specific knowledge of a certain subject.