When dealing with a system, a group of IT specialists are expected to handle this matter. A group may not be successful in organizing thoughts without the presence of a leader. An acting leader may give direction on what will the project be, how will it work and who would handle each part to divide the works. Being a leader may have the power to rule the group but it has a big responsibility on handling the group because one member may fail to obtain the desired part of the project and the one to be blame there is the project leader for it lacks leadership and communication to the other members of the group.
In the world of Information Technology, the leader of the group is called the project manager. According to bls.gov, computer and information systems managers play a vital role in the implementation and administration of technology within their organizations. They plan, coordinate, and direct research on the computer-related activities of the company. They oversee all technical aspect of an organization, such as software development, network security, and Internet operations. A project manager must simultaneously manage the four basic elements of a project: scope, money, time, and resources. The said elements are interrelated to each other.
Scope. It includes the project size, goals, and requirements. In order for the project to be properly guided, the project manager should know the size of the project so that everything that is needed in the project can be estimated. The project manager must also have goals on creating the project so that there would be a guide in accomplishing it. The project must be feasible so that there would be no problems with regards to the requirements needed on it.
Money. It includes the costs, contingencies, and the profits. After determining what requirements are needed in the project, certain costs are expected to get the needs of the project. Other possible problems that may occur during the project making may be supported with the money intended for contingencies and the project manager should visualize that after the project there would be profits for all the hard works and financial costs being sacrificed by the group.
Time. In dealing with projects, it is expected that there would be deadlines on every activities planned and the project manager should be knowledgeable enough to deal with time and deadlines. He must visualize the task duration in order to have a specific duration of project making.
Resources. It includes people, equipment, and material. The most important element in a project for without resources, no one would conduct the project, no project will be done. A group of IT specialist is preferred to work on a project. It may consist of a systems analyst, a programmer, a software developer and other professions. Equipments are necessary to build a project because tools are used for planning, designing, implementing and maintaining the project.
After defining the elements of a project that is needed to be managed by the project manager, the next thing we have to know is the steps on how to get started on the project. Here are the steps in managing a project:
1. Define the Scope – as what I discussed earlier, one of the elements in managing the system is the scope. Defining the scope is the most important step in any projects. It answers the question, “What is it you are supposed to accomplish by managing this project?” It basically determines the objective of the project. Most importantly, the project manager should define what is not included in the project.
2. Determine Available Resources – As the project manager, you usually will not have direct control of the people, equipment and money, but you will have to manage them.
3. Check the Timeline – it deals with the duration of the project being developed. As you develop your project plan you may have some flexibility in how you use time during the project, but deadlines usually are fixed. Certain situations like overtime just to meet the deadline would probably cost you to spend some additional pays to the people working overtime. It is better if the tasks are already planned together with the schedule to meet the deadline on time.
4. Assemble your Project Team – get the people on your team together and have time to introduce yourself to them so that you could build a friendly relationship with the team. Most of the team members are technical experts and no need of basic instructions because they are experts. What your role is to manage them to equally distribute the works.
5. List the Big Steps – certain tasks that are of important role in the project could be marked as milestones in order to make it as a guide. It is a good idea to list the steps in chronological order.
6. Develop a Preliminary Plan – Assemble the steps into plan. In this part, it must be determined on what happens first? Who will make the first part? What would be the next step? The thing that is needed to be organized first before anything else is the plan.
7. Create Baseline Steps – after making the preliminary plan, get feedback on it from your team and from any other clients concerning the project. Adjust your timelines and work schedules to fit the project into the available time. Make any necessary adjustments to the preliminary plan to produce a baseline plan.
8. Request Project Adjustments – There is almost never enough time, money or talent assigned to a project. Your job is to do more with the limited resources than people expect. However, there are often limits placed on a project that are simply unrealistic. You need to make your case and present it to your boss and request these unrealistic limits be changed. Ask for the changes at the beginning of the project.
9. Monitor the Team’s Progress – start monitoring what every members of the team is doing. That will make it easier to catch issues before they become problems.
10. Document Everything – as a project manager, it is your task to have records on what was happening in the duration of making the project. Every time a new requirement is added to the project write down where the requirement came from and how the timeline or budget was adjusted because of it.
11. Keep Everyone Informed – it is important that you report to the clients the progress of the project you are managing. Let them know of your success as you complete each milestone, but also inform them of problems as soon as they come up. Also keep you team informed. If changes are being considered, tell the team about them as far ahead as you can. Make sure everyone on the team is aware of what everyone else is doing.
In following these steps, a project manager can be successful in handling the team for the guidelines are already gave to meet the deadlines of the project. If there are still problems in developing the project, there are probably problems on the people handling it or the project manager himself.
As part of our interview with Sir Cornelio Dagot, we have asked him if he had ever worked in teams or did he play the role of a project manager but unfortunately he said that he never experienced working on teams because most of the systems being handled by him could be develop by one person alone. Even working outside big companies, he still works alone in the systems. So as for the question, whether you are a member or the project manager of the team, you are to be responsible of all your work in order to develop a project and to help other members to continue the tasks that are inclined to your profession.
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| My classmate are carefully listening to what Sir Cornelio Dagot shares to us. |
Source:
http://management.about.com/cs/projectmanagement/a/PM101.htm
http://management.about.com/od/projectmanagement/ht/ProjMgtSteps.htm
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