Project Management Q&A

Chapter  4

Problems 4-6 Paul is a project manager for an effort that requires twelve months. During the seventh, eighth, and ninth months he needs two individuals with special qualifications. The functional manager has promised that these individuals will be available two months before they are needed. If Paul does not assign them to his project at that time, they will be assigned elsewhere and he will have to do with whomever will be available later. What should Paul do? Do you have to make any assumptions in order to defend your answer?

 

Paul must request from functional manager to assign employees at least in five months before they start their work in order to give employee a clear picture about their tasks for training purposes, also ensure that there will be no delay may affect the project at the end. As result, Paul will not be responsible about any further delay may impact on the project.

4-10 Frank Boone is the most knowledgeable piping engineer in the company. For five years, the company has turned down his application for transfer to project engineering and project management stating that he is too valuable to the company in his current position. If you were a project manager, would you want this individual as part of your functional team? How should an organization cope with this situation?

 

Frank’s experience will support company in new changes. Frank will be recommended to work as one of the functional team as his experience will be as reference for company’s issues.

 4-18 A person assigned to your project is performing unsatisfactorily. What should you do? Will it make a difference if he is in the project office or a functional employee?

 

The following list of suggestions may contribute to job satifisaction:

·      Flexible work assignments

·      Possibly including telecommuting

·      Training and other professional growth opportunities and interesting

4-19 You have been assigned to the project office as an assistant project engineer. You are to report to the chief project engineer who reports formally to the project manager and informally to the vice president of engineering. You have never worked with this chief project engineer before. During the execution of the project, it becomes obvious to you that the chief project engineer is making decisions that do not appear to be in the best interest of the project. What should you do about this?

 

In this case, assistant project engineer should raise a report explaining the issue to both chief project engineer and project manager to help them to understand how these decisions may affect the project as well as mention assistant project engineer’s recommendations.

Chapter 5

Problems 5-6 As a project nears termination, the project manager may find that the functional people are more interested in finding a new role for themselves than in giving their best to the current situation. How does this relate to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, and what should the project manager do?

 

Project manager at this stage needs to complete the current project to be release to senior management and to public. Therefore, safety needs seem to be required by project manager.

From my opinion, project manger must be more flexible with functional people to help them to remain working until the end of this project, as usual that people becoming tired after long time of work.

5-10 on large projects, some people become experts at planning while others become experts at implementation. Planners never seem to put on another hat and see the problems of the people doing the implementation whereas the people responsible for implementation never seem to understand the problems of the planners. How can this problem be resolved on a continuous basis?

 

To avoid this kind of confusing or problem the decisions related to project path that should be made by project manager of project. These decisions should be taken based on problem’s evaluation.

5-22 How do you handle a project manager or project engineer who continually tries to “bite off more than he can chew?” If he were effective at doing this, at least temporarily, would your answer change?

 

Doing more than their allowances may affect other employees’ allowances. Even if the work quality was better that not a reason to allow people who trying to do more than what they should do. Each employee has limited tasks must to be done as required employee should not excess these tasks by doing extra activities more than needed.

5-23 A functional manager says that he has fifteen people assigned to work on your project next week (according to the project plan and schedule). Unfortunately, you have just learned that the prototype is not available and that these fifteen people will have nothing to do. Now what? Who is at fault?

 

The project cannot be start at this case without prototype that shows what tasks and how it should be assign to staff. So, that will cause delay in project delivery.

Functional manager who should handle this issue because functional manager must describe

·       What will do the task,

·       Where will the task be done,

·       How will the task be done and

·       How well has the functional input been integrated into the project.

Project Management CAPM

Chapter 10

Problems P.383

10-2, You have been called in by the executive management of a major utility company and asked to give a “selling” speech on why the company should go to project management. What are you going to say? What areas will you stress? What questions would you expect the executives to ask? What fears do you think the executives might have?

 

As an organization matures in project management, executives begin to trust middle- and lower-level management to function as sponsors. There are several reasons for supporting this:

·       Executives do not have time to function as sponsors on each and every project.

·       Not all projects require sponsorship from the executive levels.

·       Middle management is closer to where the work is being performed.

·       Middle management is in a better position to provide advice on certain risks.

·       Project personnel have easier access to middle management.

 

It is common practice for steering committee executives to function as sponsors for the projects that the steering committee oversees.

 

If an executive has to function as a sponsor on several problems at once, problems can occur such as:

 

·       Slow decision-marking resulting in problem-solving delays

·       Policy issues that remain unresolved and impact decisions

·       Inability to prioritize projects when necessary

 

10-5, The director of engineering services of R. P. Corporation believes that a project organizational structure of some sort would help resolve several of his problems. As part of the discussion, the director has made the following remarks: “All of our activities (or so-called projects if you wish) are loaded with up-front engineering. We have found in the past that time is the important parameter, not quality control or cost. Sometimes we rush into projects so fast that we have no choice but to cut corners, and, of course, quality must suffer.” What questions, if any, would you like to ask before recommending a project organizational form? Which form will you recommend?

Would like to know if the project before implementation step has been tested in controlling and monitoring phase? Seems that the project need more improvement in controlling and monitoring phase, which project managers will compare project status and progress to the actual plan, as resources perform the scheduled work.

 

10-9 During the implementation of project management, you find that line managers are reluctant to release any information showing utilization of resources in their line function. How should this situation be handled, and by whom?

                                                

In this case, project manager can be return to functional manager. A functional manager is a person who has management authority over an organizational unit such as, a department - within a business, company, or other organization. Functional managers have ongoing responsibilities.

Chapter 11

Problems P.483

11-2, What planning steps should precede total program scheduling? What steps are necessary?

·       Objective

·       Program

·       Schedule

·       Budget

·       Forecast

·       Organization

·       Policy

·       Procedure

·       Standard

Important steps:

·       Objective

·       Schedule

·       Budget

11-6, Who determines the work necessary to accomplish an objective?

         Project manager

11-15, Can activities 5 and 6 of Figure 11–11 be eliminated? What risks does a project manager incur if these activities are eliminated?

Any delay in these activities that may cause delay in rest of project. Project manager will be responsible will be asked from senior management about the reasons that affected program plans review.

11-18, Consider a project in which all project planning is performed by a group. After all planning is completed, including the program plan and schedules, a project manager is selected. Is there anything wrong with this arrangement? Can it work?

Project plan should be following this framework:

·       Eliminates conflicts between functional managers

·       Eliminates conflicts between functional management and program management

·       Provides a standard communications tool throughout the lifetime of the project (It should be geared to the work breakdown structure)

·       Provides verification that the contractor understands the customer’s objectives and requirements

·       Provides a means for identifying inconsistencies in the planning phase

·       Provides a means for early identification of problem areas and risks so that no surprises occur downstream

·       Contains all of the s11-20 Should a good project plan formulate methods for anticipating problems?