Leading Project Teams

The Basics of Project Management and Team Leadership

Anthony T. Cobb

• Publisher: SAGE Publications, Inc
• Year: 2011
• ISBN:
  9781483342375
• Edition: 2
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Gestione
• Index: Business

This practical book provides entry-level project tools and skills for newcomers to project management. It helps student teams become more effective at doing course projects by learning and applying project management tools and techniques. It also provides invaluable skills that students can utilize when they enter the workplace. Chapters focusing on project initiation and planning are followed by coverage of the human resource issues involved in project leadership and how to write up project reports. Appendices introduce the use of earned value analysis and show how critical paths are calculated.

1 Introduction

• Project Fundamentals 4
  • Defining Characteristics of Projects 4
    • Projects Are Unique 4
    • Projects Are Temporary 4
  • Project Parameters 5
  • Dimensions of Project Leadership 6
• Overview of Book
  • Chapters 2–5: Fundamentals of Project Initiation and Planning 7
    • Chapter 2: Determining the Direction and Initial Specifications of a Project 7
    • Chapter 3: The Work Breakdown Structure 8
    • Chapter 4: Project Scheduling 8
    • Chapter 5: Managing Project Risk 8
  • Chapters 6–8: Fundamentals of Project Leadership 9
    • Chapter 6: Developing Project Teams 9
    • Chapter 7: The Project Team's Environment 9
    • Chapter 8: Leading Project Teams 10
  • Chapter 9: Writing Project Reports 10
• Summary 10
• Endnotes 11
• Key Terms 12

Interest in and demand for project management has increased a great deal over the past 20 years. This increase in interest and demand can be seen in a number of ways. One way is in the number of books oriented to project management, which now number in the thousands. Another is in the growth of training programs offered in project management, which are now widely available and also number in the thousands.¹ Still a third way is in college recruiting. Recruiters often develop much more interest in students when they mention their project management training or their experience in leading project teams. Perhaps most indicative of interest in project management is the results one gets from simply “Googling” project management.

Part of this increase in demand is due to growth in what can be called “traditional” project work. Most of the early work in project management was done by engineers working for large “performing” companies that conducted large-scale projects for outside clients.² Working on projects like high-rise construction or large weapon systems, these professionals developed most of the project management tools we now use. Certainly, demand for these kinds of projects has increased over the years.

Interest in project management, however, has grown in a number of other areas as well. One of these areas is new product development. Product life cycles have shrunk a great deal because organizations have turned to using new product development as a competitive strategy. To remain competitive, organizations have to constantly update and remodel what they offer their customers. Companies have found that bringing new products to market is best managed in a project environment using cross-functional project teams.

Another area of growth is in the demand for new organizational processes. Organizations not only have to constantly develop new products to remain competitive, but they have to constantly develop themselves as well. From quality circles to “Tiger Teams,” organizations have looked to project teams to reinvent and reengineer themselves to attain ever-increasing levels of quality and efficiency.

These kinds of challenges have produced what might be called a “project mindset.” Whenever something of significance needs to be done—a problem solved or an opportunity seized—higher management assembles project teams to do the work. Whether the projects are making process improvements, starting new ventures, developing new client services, finding and opening new market niches, or even running political campaigns, leaders have come to value project management tools and skills in planning and conducting them.

With this broadening of project work, the composition of project teams has also changed. Although many are still composed of builders or engineers, most are not. Members come from all walks of life and from all professions. Project teams are assembled in laboratories, universities, government offices, school districts, on the shop floor, and in the executive suite, to name just a few project “work sites.”

The level of skills required for these project teams has also changed. Although the full range of skills used by professional project engineers is always useful, most of the need is for more entry-level project skills. Smaller projects depend less on sophisticated tools to do such tasks as cost or risk analysis and depend much more on tools needed to organize projects, clarify deliverables, work with stakeholders, and manage and lead project teams.

This book is written to help convey entry-level project tools and skills for the newcomer to project management. It is designed so it can be used as a supplemental text in courses dedicated to topics other than project management. In these kinds of venues, its aims are twofold. First, it aims to help student teams become more effective at doing course projects by learning project management techniques and applying them to their work. Teams are simply more effective and learn more when they have the skills to do the course's projects well. Second, it aims to help prepare students to enter the kind of “project life” that has come to dominate so much of modern organizational work. From whatever area of study students emerge, recruiters see project training and experience as value added, and this gives the student a comparative advantage over those who have not benefited from such training.

This book, then, is designed to be of help in a wide range of professional programs. This includes, of course, undergraduate and MBA-level business courses such as business strategy, entrepreneurship, organizational behavior, information systems, project management, and operations management, among others. It was also written, however, to serve project management needs in a wider range of curricula including education, health care, sciences, information technology, engineering, political science, and other programs whose students will someday be called on to lead project work in their field. Since its first publication, it has been used in a variety of consulting and training venues as well.

In the remainder of this chapter, we examine some of the fundamental notions of what characterizes projects and what makes them unique. We then turn our attention to how the basic tools of project management are addressed in this book as well as essential elements of successful project leadership.

Project Fundamentals

Defining Characteristics of Projects

The Project Management Institute defines a project as a temporary endeavor undertaken to create a unique product, service, or result.³ The two defining characteristics of projects, then, are that they are unique and temporary.

Projects Are Unique

Projects are unique in terms of the outcomes they produce. Just how unique they are, however, can vary a great deal. At one extreme, we might find the development of new weapons systems. They may require yet-to-be-developed composites for armor, space-age munitions, cutting-edge guidance systems, and the like. Most projects, however, produce products and services far less exotic. Custom-built homes, for example, are unique from one another but similar in other respects: basics of foundations, wiring, plumbing, and the like. When a company opens a new market area, it is likely producing a unique outcome, although the company may have opened many others in the past—each new one is likely different in some significant way from all the others. Although these projects may not present the design challenges of a new weapons system, those who lead them know how challenging they are.

This leads us to another aspect of what makes projects unique. They are unique in terms of how they are conducted. They are unique in terms of their staffing, their stakeholders, the resources used, when things have to be done, how work is to be coordinated, and a host of other operational aspects.

It is because organizations face these kinds of challenges on an almost daily basis that project management tools and skills have become so much in demand. There is little doubt that these tools and skills can help with these kinds of projects. How they are used to plan and control a project, however, is always a problem-solving process, and each new project has to be handcrafted.

Projects Are Temporary

Projects are also temporary endeavors. They have a life cycle that fundamentally affects their structure, dynamics, and operations and, as a result, their management. Project life cycles have been described in a number of ways, but we will focus on five stages: initiation, planning, launch, execution, and closing.⁴ Project initiation is the stage in which a project's key stakeholders first come together to define the broad outlines of a project. A key objective of this stage is to come to a common understanding of what the project is supposed to produce and estimate what it will take to do so. Given this understanding and these estimates, another key objective is to decide whether to move forward with the project.

In organizations dedicated to project work, the initiation phase results in an assessment of whether a project fits with the organization's profit goals or business model. We examine it here in a more general way—to make sure significant stakeholders are on board before moving too far down the road.

The project planning stage emerges once a decision is made to move forward. Here, more detailed planning is done to “nail down” a wide range of project specifics, including the precise tasks required to produce the project's products and services, more precise estimates of resource needs and their costs, and the time required to perform project work. In addition, how project tasks will be arranged across the project's life cycle will be determined and mapped onto a project schedule. These come together in a project plan—a blueprint—of what the project will look like, and the plan is used in the actual conduct of the project. This plan, too, needs to be approved by significant stakeholders before major project work actually begins.

The project launch is done once the planning is complete and initial resources are committed. Beginning the actual work on a project is a critical juncture in any project's life and demands a great deal of leader attention. Not the least of this attention is aimed at assembling the right project team, structuring the team so that it can reach its potential, and correctly initiating its project work.

The major objective of the project execution stage—the stage in which tasks are delegated to team members and most of the project's work is done—is to keep the project on track once it has been launched. Working with the project team, leaders need to monitor and control the pace of project work, its costs, and performance quality. Working with external stakeholders, leaders need to maintain project support; ensure flow of project resources; and minimize but adapt to project pressures, disruptions, and changes.

Finally, in the project closing phase, final products, services, and other project outcomes are delivered to the client. Project ties to the performing or host organization are retired, and the project team itself disbands. Each of these activities requires proper managerial and leadership attention.

Projects Parameters

There are three major parameters to every project: project scope, costs, and time. Project scope refers to the sum total of all work to be done to produce the project's deliverables—the products and services to be delivered to the customer. Costs are the sum total of project costs to do the project's work. Fi...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Detailed Contents
• 1 Introduction
• 2 Determining the Direction and Initial Specifications of a Project
• 3 The Work Breakdown Structure
• 4 Project Scheduling
• 5 Managing Project Risk
• 6 Developing Project Teams
• 7 The Project Team's Environment
• 8 Leading Project Teams
• 9 Writing Project Reports
• Appendix A Calculating the Critical Path Using the Critical Path Method
• Appendix B Earned Value Analysis
• Author Index
• About the Author