Chapter 3

Role of Project
Manager
When Project Managers are involved in the project ?

• Role of a project manager is tailored to fit the

organizational need
• Usually project managers become involved in a
project from its initiation through closing.
• But, in some organizations, a project manager may be
involved prior to project initiation and follow on
activities of the project
Activities of project manager if assigned prior to project
initiation.
• Consulting with Executive leaders
• to advance strategic objectives,
• improving organizational performance, or meeting
customer needs.
• to assist in business analysis, business case development,
and aspects of portfolio management for a project.

Role of Project Manager compared with Orchestra Conductor

Project Manager Vs Operations/Functional Manager

• Project Manager’s Sphere of Influence:

• A sphere of influence is a concept borrowed from
geopolitics. In this context Sphere of Influence (SOI) can be
understood as the working relationships that a PM impacts;
People in the professional network with whom PM’s opinion
hold some weight.
Responsibilities of PM at project level
• Meet the project’s objectives and stakeholders’
expectations.
• Balance the competing constraints on the project with the
resources available.
• Provide direction and presenting the vision of success for
the project.
• Balance the conflicting and competing goals of the
project stakeholders and achieve consensus.

Responsibilities of PM at project level

• Interacting with other project managers that helps
fulfilling the human, technical or financial need of the
project
• Project sponsor to address internal political and strategic
issues
• Work towards increasing project management
competency in the organization
• Involve in knowledge transfer ( tacit+ explicit)
• Interacts with functional manager ( he may report to
functional manager in matrix organizations), PMO,
program and portfolio manager
• May involve in business analysis
Responsibilities of PM to his Industry
• Stay abreast of current trends in the industry such as
• New tools and technology
• Product development
• Emerging markets
• Updated standards
• Sustainability / Process improvement strategies
Responsibilities of PM to his Discipline
• Knowledge transfer in his profession at the local, national,
and global levels
• Participation in training, continuing education, and
development in project management profession or
related profession

Across Disciplines
• educate other professionals regarding the value of a
project management approach to the organization.
PMP Certification renewal and Talent Triangle
PMI ‘s Talent Triangle
• While technical skills are core to project and program management, PMI
research tells us they’re not enough in today’s increasingly complex and
competitive global marketplace.
• Companies are seeking added skills in leadership and business intelligence
competencies that can support longer-range strategic objectives that
contribute to the bottom line.

• 3 skill sets needed by project managers :

• Leadership
• Strategic Management
• Technical Project Management

• Technical Project Management

• Domain related expertise, all knowledge areas
• Focus on critical project artifacts
• Certification specific knowledge such as PMP, PgMP, PfMP
• Following areas comes under this arm
• Agile practices and traditional PM practices
• Data gathering and modelling
• Earned value management •
• Governance (project, program, portfolio)
• Lifecycle management (project program, portfolio, product)
• Performance management (project program, portfolio)
• Requirements management and traceability
• Risk management
• Schedule management
• Scope management (project program, portfolio, product)
• Time, budget, and cost estimation
PMI ‘s Talent Triangle
1. Critical Project Artifacts
2. Critical success factors for the project,
3. Schedule,
Selected financial reports, and
4. Issue log.

• Strategic and Business Management

• Business oriented skills;
• Applies to all certifications
• Knowledge gained in any of the following areas can be
recorded under this arm.
• Benefits management and realization
• Business acumen
• Business models and structures
• Competitive analysis
• Cost benefit analysis
• Customer relationship and satisfaction
• Industry knowledge and standards
• Legal and regulatory compliance
• Market awareness and conditions
• Operational functions (e.g. finance, marketing • Strategic
planning, analysis, alignment

Project Manager should be aware of and ensure project

alignment to
• Strategy,
• Mission,
• Goals and objectives,
• Priority,
• Tactics, and
• Products or services
 PMI Triangle
• Leadership
• Competency in guiding and motivating;
• Applies to all certifications
• Knowledge gained in any of the following areas can be
recorded under this arm.
• Brainstorming
• Coaching and mentoring
• Conflict management
• Emotional intelligence
• Influencing and Interpersonal skills
• Listening
• Negotiation
• Resilience
• Problem solving
• Team building

Visionary and optimistic

Consensus building and Conflict
resolving
Collaborative and network building
Learner : Accept and give
Leadership Qualities feedback
Honest and ethical

Prioritize appropriately

System and critical thinker

Personality Traits

Genuine open
concern and treat
Authentic people as they
are

Courteous Follow etiquettes

Think out of box;

Creative innovate

Aptitudinally
Intellectual yet Sound and
possess
Leadership Emotional interpersonal
skills.
Personalities
Managerial and
Political
Understand,
Social and Service Manage and
Oriented Willingness to
serve people

Culturally sensitive

Understand and
Systemic build systems
Project Manager – A Leader or Manager ?
• He should employ both leadership and manager role and strike
balance between these two.

• Leadership styles
• Laissez faire or Hands off style
• The French term laissez-faire has been translated as
meaning allow to act, allow to do, or leave alone.
• A laissez-faire manager is not directly involved in the work
of the team, but manages and consults as necessary.
• Empowering employees and boosting productivity overall.
This type of leadership can also help a team to improve
morale as a whole.
• This style can be appropriate with a highly skilled team.
Leadership styles
• Transactional Style
• Transactional leaders are focused on the tasks at hand and
view the work as a set of discrete transactions between
them and their subordinates.
• They are task-driven or goal focused and not likely to
empower team members or to encourage out-of-the-box
thinking.
• Leaders promote compliance by followers through both
rewards and punishments.
• Involves management by exception

Management by Exception is a management style, policy or

philosophy wherein managers intervene only when their
employees fail to meet their performance standards or when
things go wrong. If the personnel are performing as expected,
the manager will take no action.

• Transformational Leadership style

• empowering followers through idealized attributes such as
• inspirational motivation,
• encouragement for innovation and creativity, and
• individual consideration
Leadership styles – A comparison

TRANSACTIONAL TRANSFORMATIONAL

Leadership is responsive Leadership is proactive

Works to change the

Works within the organizational
organizational culture by
culture
implementing new ideas

Employees achieve objectives through Employees achieve objectives

rewards and punishments set by through higher ideals and
leader moral values

Motivates followers by
Motivates followers by appealing to
encouraging them to put
their own self-interest
group interests first

Individualized consideration:
Each behaviour is directed to
Management-by-exception: maintain each individual to express
the status quo; stress correct actions consideration and support.
to improve performance. Intellectual stimulation:
Promote creative and
innovative ideas to solve
problems.
Try Matching the following

• Charismatic Leadership
• The charismatic leadership style relies on the charm and
persuasiveness of the leader.
• Charismatic leaders are driven by their convictions and
commitment to their cause.
• Interactional Leadership
• No one set of characteristics ensures successful leaders .
• Effective leader styles or behaviors fit the specific situation
• Leader uses a combination of transactional, transformational
and charismatic leadership
 Factors that affect Leadership Style

Leader Team Member Organizational Environmental

Characteristics Characteristics Characteristic Characteristics
• Attitude, • Attitude, • Purpose, • Political,
mood values, mood values, structure and Economic, and
ethics of ethics of team. nature of social
leader. work of the conditions.
organization.

POLITICS and POWER

• Ability to deal with politics is an important for project manager
to achieve the project goals and objectives.
• Politics involves influence, negotiation, autonomy, and
power.
• Politics is neither good or bad inherently.
• Politics that are attempting to produce results beneficial for
the organization are positive.
• Negative, or destructive politics are focused on personal
gains disregarding the interest of the group.
• Politics involve
• observing and collecting data about the project and
organizational landscapes
• Based on the review of data , project manager has to plan
and implement the most appropriate action
• selecting the right kind of power to influence and negotiate
with others
POLITICS and POWER
• Power
• The influence of a leader over his followers is often referred
to as power.
• Exercise of power also carries with it the responsibility of
being sensitive to and respectful of other people.
Types of Power
There are numerous forms of power at the disposal of project
managers.
• Positional
• Otherwise called formal, authoritative, legitimate power
• followers believe that the leader has “a right” to instruct
them and that they have an obligation to follow instructions.
• created by the leader’s job title
• Reward-oriented
• his type of influence is created when the leader is able to
offer a reward(praise, monetary or other desired items) to
his followers for completing tasks in a certain manner(.

• Punitive or coercive
• This is the opposite of reward power because this power is
based on the leader having control over what happens if
followers do not act as required- ability to invoke discipline
or negative consequences

• If followers do not undertake the action required, the leader

will impose a penalty. Penalties take a variety of forms
including withdrawal of privileges, job losses, and with
drawl of job promotion opportunities. (e.g.,
Types of Power
• Expert :
• leader has expert power when the followers believe that
the leader has “expert” knowledge or skills that are
relevant to the job or tasks they have to complete.
• Exhibited by a specific skill, information possessed
experience, training, education, certification.
• Informational
• Leader holds this power by being in charge of the process
of gathering and distributing information.
• Referent:
• Ability of a leader in influence a follower because of the
follower’s admiration, respect or identification with the
leader.
• Built heavily on the trust or credibility gained by the
follower.
• Unlike formal power , referent power is bestowed on a
leader by their followers
• Relational
• Emerges from relationship with other through networking,
connections, and alliances
• Personal or charismatic (e.g., charm, attraction);
• power based upon the ability to charm, to persuade, to
hypnotize people solely with the power of personality.
• Ingratiating
• attempts to influence another person by becoming more
likeable to their target.
• By using compliments or flattery or other common ground
to win favor or cooperation)
Types of Power
• Guilt-based
• The project manager reminds people their role and the fact
that they are not living up to their expectation, hence
followers feel guilty of not fulfilling their duty and a sense
of obligation
• Pressure-based
• A pressure-based approach is focused on restricting
choices(e.g., limit freedom of choice or movement) and
pressuring the team. The goal is to get the results
• Persuasive
• Opposite of forcing
• Talk with followers and convince them to do so by
providing arguments in a convincing way to move
people to a desired course of action
• Avoiding Power
• Power gained by refusing to participate in an activity.
• Situational
• There are times (unique situations in project) where
things are in crisis.
This power comes from rescuing
the/project/organization from such crisis.

Effective Project managers are proactive in gaining power and

will work to acquire the power and authority they need within
the boundaries of organizational policies, and procedures
rather than wait for it to be granted.
Project Manager – An Integrator
• 2 fold role of project manager as integrator
• Aid in integration of strategy- he work with sponsor to
achieve this
• Integration of project processes, knowledge and
people- He guides the team to achieve this.
• To perform integration
• Project Manage should understand how the processes
interact with each other; identify overlapping,
iterative and one time processes and accordingly
integrate them to achieve project
objectives.(PROCESS LEVEL)

• Project Manager should scan and be aware of

environment(context) and integrate/ make use of new
technologies , new values and methods in the project.
(CONTEXT LEVEL)

• Project Manager’s personal skills, business skills,

technical skills ability and proficiency on Knowledge
areas are essential for him to perform the function of
integration.(COGNITIVE LEVEL)
 3 Dimensions – Project Complexity
• Projects consists of complex elements that can be explained by
following dimensions.
• These 3 dimensions are the most defining characteristics of
project complexity.
• Project Manager should consider these during planning,
executing/managing and controlling projects and integrate
accordingly

System Human Ambiguity

Behaviour Behaviour

• Projects • Lack of clarity

• Projects are involve and
systems that diverse understanding
has many individuals, and
interdependent groups, uncertainty of
components organizations. issues