Before you became a leader, success was only about your own growth. When you become a leader, success is related to the growth of others. —Jack Welch
In recent years, projects have been all over the mountains and the city is full of project managers. Especially with the rise of PMP®, a cliché, project managers are becoming increasingly popular.
Calm down, what the hell is a project manager? The answers are endless and sometimes create ripples on the programme. Although the project manager is not a new student, he is far from the stage of forming the so-called convention into a norm.
Just graduated, applied for a project manager, be more face, cool! He has been in the workplace for more than ten years and has also applied for a project manager.
Paul Grace's "In today's society, everything is a project and everything will be a project." "Giving the universality of the project also pushes the importance of project management to the altar."
1
A project manager is more like just a TITLE
Detail the titles related to the project in the workplace: project assistant, project specialist, project planner, project engineer, assistant project manager, project manager, project manager, senior project manager, project director...
Many of the work is immediately obvious at a glance, but the project manager is difficult to argue. It may be a complete project or the person in charge of the product. Even more, it may be referred to as the head of a product development department, the product manager (this is more misunderstood by outsiders). In fact, the project manager at this moment, more like a position direction of the TITLE - a person doing the project; just like the customer service manager may be just a customer service. The organization in which the specific job responsibilities are located is often unclear. In short, the work that cannot find the responsible person in the project belongs to you! To put it bluntly, you can do whatever the organization needs you to do on the project! So, that's why there's always a verbal battle when a bunch of project managers are discussing what to do, and there's always a little frog in everyone's heart.
Officers, wash and sleep! The project manager is mostly a TITLE, huh...
The Americans gave a so-called ultimate version of the definition: "A project manager is an individual delegated by an executive organization to achieve the goals of a project." (PMBOK? Guide (5th Edition))
First of all, he neither pays money to team members, nor can he decide on the promotion of team members (common situation), and also arranges for team members to work, which is naturally not welcomed by employees.
Secondly, from time to time, he competes with functional departments for resources and adds trouble to functional departments, and these department managers are naturally annoyed with project managers.
Moreover, when CEOs meet project managers, they always hear a bunch of bad news. Either the schedule is delayed, or the cost is overspended, or the quality has deteriorated, or the customer is dissatisfied. In the eyes of bosses, project managers are "people who never bring good news."
In short, the project manager is a person who is hated by everyone in the organization!
If you like a person, let him be a project manager, because the project may make him a performance; if you hate a person, let him be a project manager, because nine times out of ten he will be ruined by a failed project.
2
What does a project manager do?
What does a project manager do? Some run between technology and design to advance progress. Others deal with documents all the time. In effect, this is the environment of a real project manager. Sometimes they are not to blame, because this is often a problem caused by organizational deficiencies and belongs to the business environment. It is no wonder that discussions are always difficult to agree.
Back to the point, the role of project managers is often vague, because the job structure of the organization is not necessarily as complete as ideal, and many times the project manager needs to understand technology and management. Sometimes he may also need to understand organizational politics and customer experience, because he has to communicate with all the stakeholders to correctly communicate the concept of the project and the business that the project should achieve.
If the organization has the conditions, it is still necessary to return to the original function of the project manager, after all, the art industry has a specialty. We just need to better communicate our expressions and needs to them adequately.
The essential job of a project manager is to realize the project business. Specifically, it is to generate behavior for users, analyze user expectations, study and control the entire life cycle of the project, so that the project can achieve a balance between user expectations and organizational profitability while solving the actual business problems of users.
Naturally, this places demands on the quality of the project manager in the humanities, natural sciences, etc. Of course, this is relatively virtual, how to grasp, how to balance? Admittedly, the above is based on familiarity with the industry and project deliverables (products). A fledgling workplace freshman is generally more in an executive position. For example, simple communication and coordination to advance the project, testing according to the test rules, etc.
In any case, we must not forget the original intention of the project manager, understand what is the purpose of what is done to make a successful project - it is difficult! After all, successful projects account for only a tiny fraction of all projects!
3
Everyone is a project manager
"Everything is a project", naturally, everyone is a project manager. The do-gooder attributes the popularity of the project manager position to the low barriers to entry for this position, because everyone is right. But I personally think it would be unfair to understand this often misunderstood phrase in this way!
Everyone is a project manager, but not everyone can be a "project manager" well. Choose its appropriate and follow it, everyone is a general reference, writing a resume is a project, finding a friend to get married is a project, having children is a project, buying a house is a project, decorating a house is a project, and developing a mobile phone is also a project... Naturally, it's understandable that everyone is a project manager.
But as mentioned above, there are specializations in the art industry. A project manager (parent, teacher) who raises children does not necessarily have the function of a project manager. Everyone is a project manager, but it is rare to manage our "project" well and produce good results.
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4
What does a project manager need?
This topic is very troublesome! Let's discuss a few issues here.
1. Whether you need to take a project management certificate
Many project managers are taking certificates, PMP?, IPMP[1], CPMP[2]... There are also project management certifications within a variety of industries. One of the questions I'm often asked is, "Is it necessary to take a project management certificate?" ”
It's a difficult question to answer, but I often ask, "Is it necessary to go to college?" "I don't encourage everyone to do it unless you have a realistic need. Of course, everyone applies a professional approach to doing things, which at least allows us to take fewer detours and make fewer mistakes. Naturally, every project manager should learn a professional project management body of knowledge and methods. It should be emphasized that as a project manager, we must consider all issues from a realistic point of view, after all, we have our "characteristics" here.
Therefore, my proposition is that all project management that deviates from the generally recognized good practices and attempts to take shortcuts is like a eunuch talking about the climax; all exaggerations that are divorced from reality and try to do idealized project management are hooligans.
2. Competency knowledge framework for project managers
PMI launched the Project Manager Competency Development Framework
Manage the professional development of a project manager as an individual or organization. The project manager competency development framework has three dimensions: project management knowledge, project management application, and personal competence
The ideal project manager's competency knowledge competency framework
Someone has refined the ideal project manager's competency knowledge framework into the following diagram.
Don't look at it, don't know, look at it and be shocked! If you really have so much knowledge and ability, who is this? Isn't this the legendary "SuperMan"?
To be honest, being a good project manager is really hard!
You need to understand how to manage the start-, planning, execution, monitoring, and closing of the project; you need to have financial, quality, production, marketing, marketing, information technology knowledge; you need to be familiar with project management, operation management, strategic management; you need to have an industry background, understand market information, professional technology... These may be easy to do, as long as you calm down and study well, after all, it still belongs to the category of knowledge, time!
The difficulty is that a good project manager needs to understand the project environment, know how to adapt to the factors of the career environment, need to have imagination, have decision-making ability, and must have a good personality, attitude and habits...
The most difficult thing is to have the correct values and outlook on life!
If all this is available, who is this? Saints – maybe not human at all!
Therefore, to become an excellent project manager in the Chinese mainland is better than "Shu Dao"!
3. The most important skills of the project manager
I am often asked what skills a project manager has that are most important, and I will answer "interpersonal skills" without hesitation. Project managers who don't deal with people will have a lot of trouble.
A director of a big construction group told me that he had to transfer a project manager to a position where he didn't have to deal with people. The project manager knew architecture and how to plan, but he was often angry and made the director spend a lot of time calming people's emotions.
Yet interpersonal skills are underestimated in most organizations. I've rarely seen projects that fail because project managers can't make Gantt charts, but it's common for many projects to be in serious crisis due to interpersonal issues.
The project manager is just a TITLE, doing what needs to be done, and everything else is a floating cloud.
Freezing three feet is not a cold day. This position requires us to do everything, understand everything, and need the correct values and outlook on life, and there is no step to the heavens. Now the "good" project managers are all wild roads, crawling and rolling, and cannot be copied.