6 PROJECT MANAGEMENT LEADERSHIP
Technical management skills are responsible for the functioning of a project and, therefore, are
a key part of con guration management and scope management, which includes the project
feasibility study, build method and scope changes.
On smaller projects the project management leader might be expected to be the technical expert as
well as the manager and leader of the project. In fact, early on in a person’s career they probably will
not be appointed as project manager unless they are a technical expert in the eld of the project.
But as projects increase in size, so will the size of the project team and project organization struc-
ture. In which case, the project management leader will become progressively less involved in tech-
nical issues and more involved in managing and leading the project team and project participants.
Project Entrepreneurship Skills: It is important to include the project management leader’s
project entrepreneurship skills of spotting opportunities, inventing new products, solving chal-
lenging problems, making decisions and accepting the associated risks, because these are the
triggers that exploit opportunities and initiate new ventures and new projects. One could argue
that without entrepreneurial skills the status quo would rule and there would be no new projects!
e project management leader can also bene t from entrepreneurial skills during the execu-
tion of the project because, as the project moves forward, there will be better information on the
latest technology, better information on the market conditions and, most importantly, the latest
information on the competition’s products and pricing strategy. With entrepreneurial skills the
project management leader will be able to incorporate the latest technology into the project’s
con guration, tailor the project to appeal to the target market and enhance the project to main-
tain the company’s competitive advantage.
Project Management Skills: e project management leader’s project management skills are
required to set up and run a project management system, which will help plan and control the
project. e project management system is the backbone of the planning and control process,
which might need to be tailored to meet the needs of the project sponsor, the needs of the project
and the needs of the stakeholders (particularly the project team, contractors and suppliers).
As projects grow in size, so the information and communication ows will grow exponentially.
e project, therefore, needs an integrated system to issue instructions, monitor progress, pro-
cess progress data, forecast and report performance. Without an e ective system the information
overload will lead to chaos.
e project manager will also bene t from conceptual skills and the ability to think analyti-
cally, break down problems into smaller parts (WBS), recognize the logical relationships between
activities (CPM) and the implications between any one problem and another (interfaces), deal
with ambiguous situations (risks) and change management skills.
www.it-ebooks.info