Project manager

Introduction

Project managers face numerous challenges in the process of starting, running and completing a particular project. They are expected to lay strong ground work for the success of the project. As a result, two questions remains in project management; what are the top five issues that a project manager must consider in the early stages of the project? What, among the five issues, should be prioritized and why? This paper seeks to discuss the challenges that a project manager faces at the initial stages of a project and will be submitted to the management class for discussion.

Main Body

The five issues

Several authors have undertaken to write about issues that must be taken into account in the tender stages of a project. Out of the many suggestions, the number one issue is the administrative task (Kelly, 2011). This issue corresponds to Roman’s number one skill of ensuring that direction and leadership is given to the team members (Roman, 2011). There is no other way in which a project manager can become an achiever apart from carefully providing upshot oriented leadership to his team members. The main duty is to ensure that administration is provided which may include giving the project’s objectives and goals to the team players. Ground rules must be set as well as the timeline for the project. This will ensure that rules are followed and that team members clearly understand the prospects.

Secondly, utilization of available resources must be considered. The project manager must take stock of what has been supplied for and the deficit. Proper planning for the availed resources must then become a priority for the project manager to ensure that wastage is minimized. In the planning, the manager must identify products that will be used and the activities that will go hand in hand with them. In addition, the schedule, duration and the total cost must be the driving force in this planning stage (Mazza et al, 1995). This will help the manager and the client to revolve around the provision of the budget estimates, thus reduce wastage or misuse of resources.

Thirdly, the manager must effectively identify management tools at the sunrise of the project. Since this is purely software management project, the manager must specialize with the type of software tools that will be used in data analysis and tabulation. Such tools may include Excel, spreadsheet, the use of charts and graphs among others. Since the project will be relying on the data collected from research, it would be important for the manager to device appropriate methods of data storage like the use of files and data backup systems. This will not only help the manager to reduce time wastage in looking for vital project documents and records but also will provide ultimate security to the data (West, n.d.).

The fourth consideration is how to manage the rank meetings and conferences. It has been argued that for a project life cycle to be complete, which is the different facets that a project must go through (Lenfle & Loch, 2010), there is a need to have strategic meetings aimed at giving reports and evaluation of how the project activities are being executed. The project manager must schedule for these meetings as well as the agendas and this will usher in proper time management, hence be able to hit the deadlines. For instance, the manager may decide to pass agendas, reports, minutes and other documents via email rather than calling for a meeting. Lastly, it is important to do performance process. This has been observed to be the driving force behind the success of any project (Haponava & Al-Jibouri, 2010). All efforts must be directed to fulfilling the mission, objectives and end product of the project. This will ensure quality of the work done.

In priority

This paper gives the first and second priority to administrative work and management tools respectively. This is because the success of any project depends on how best administration and management has been effected in the process. The third and fourth priority is resource utility and rank meetings and conferences. Once administration has been put in place, the manager can proceed to utilize the resources available to call and arrange for meetings, and they also provide for an avenue to do evaluation and performance checks and balances.

What could go wrong?

The first thing that risks going wrong is data entry and analysis. Since it is a research work, correct data analysis must be done so that the room for actual results is created. There must be coherence between the data collected in the field and the outcome findings. Secondly, the choice of data tabulation may not be congruent and thus the manager must pick the best option available. For instance, pie charts may be better than graphs in data analysis. The right choice of data entry will dictate the scope, time and cost the project will consume.

Conclusion

It is important for every project manager to have the knowledge of the issues that revolve around project management. This knowledge will pave way for accuracy in the end results. Autonomy of choice must also be integrated in project activities and this should be done without changing the available data.

References

Haponava, T. & Al-Jibouri, S. (2010). Influence of process performance during the construction stage on achieving end-project goals. Construction Management and Economics , 28, 853-869.

Kelly, R. (2011, January 10). Top 10 Issues for project Managers. Kelly’s Contemplation: Thoughts on leadership, Project Management. , pp. 1-4.

Lenfle, S. & Loch, C. (2010). Lost Roots: How Project Management came to emphasize control over flexibility and novelty. California Management Review , 53, 32-55.

Mazza, C. (1995). Guide to Software projectmanagement. Noordwijk: European Space Agency.

Roman, K. (2011). Five Critical Skills for Team Leadership. Columbia: Collegiate Project Services.

West, C. (n.d.). Five Common ProjectManagement Challenges. Irvine: Metafuse Inc.