Qualities that the Project Team Should Have

The term project becomes so familiar in our every day work. The successful projects running in companies often tempt to have more projects to be launched simultaneously. Upper management could easily forget the important of solid project team member to drive the projects to be successful.

As defined in "A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK® Guide) Third Edition", the project management team should understand and use knowledge and skills from at least five areas of expertise:

- The Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK)
- Application area knowledge, standards, and regulation
- Understanding Project Environment
- General Management Knowledge and Skill
- Interpersonal Skills

One project member is not required to master of the areas above. However, as a project team, they should have covered all aspects. Details of each expertise area are discussed below:

1. PMBOK can be illustrated as sets of knowledge and skills that are generally accepted to have project management. Read details in some PMBOK guides/books.
2. Application area knowledge is the area that has common element to the project but does not need to be present in the project. Such area has standards and regulations that project team member should be aware of. One example is when having a construction project. One should aware that in the application area of construction there are sets of standard (with or without ISO) for building constructions, and sets of regulations that are imposed by government.
3. Understanding Project Environment. Environment could be cultural, social, international, political, or physical environment.
4. General Management Knowledge Skills are the skills required to carry out planning, organizing, staffing, executing, and controlling the project phases. The knowledge and skills could be varied like financial, accounting, sales, marketing, logistics, supply chain, information technology, etc. Project manager should have strong skills on this point.
5. Interpersonal Skills includes the skills like: effective communication, leadership, motivation, negotiation and conflict management, problem solving, etc.

Therefore, an organization should identify the right persons to be included in the project and make sure they (as a team) can encompass all aspect discussed above. This is to ensure the project objectives can be achieved at the targeted time and costs.

Why we called it Project? What differs Project with Operation?

Many of us have heard about the term “project”, even during our college days we often heard “mid-term project” or “final term project”. Project involves organization of people and other resources to perform work. But what makes it different with Operation? As we know that operation also involves people and resources to perform work. The main differences can bee noticed because projects are:
• Temporary
• Resulting a unique product or service

“Temporary” means that the project has a definite start time and finish time. The project starts when the initiation process has been launched. The project finishes when the project’s objectives have been achieved. The project duration can be short like matter of days. On the other hand, the project can take years as well. Take note that even the project can take year, this is because the scope of the project is huge. Small scope of the project should not take time to manage. If the project keeps on deviating from the objective or having delays in most of the time, then, the project management should think and act if the project should be terminated.

Even tough the project is temporary, the end result are mostly a permanent product. For example: project of implementing new customer information system for electricity company. The project itself is temporary to implement new system. When the project’s objective is achieved and the project closes, the system is going to be used by the company in permanent basis. The work will then become an operation work.

“Resulting a unique product or services” means that the project carries out a unique product or services. Let us continue the example of implementing customer information system for Electricity Company. One may say that the customer information system is not unique. It is a common system used by many electricity companies. So what makes it unique? The one that make it unique is because the project is implemented by different vendor. It is unique because the electricity company that is going to be implemented the system is different. It is unique because the customization of the customer information system for that electricity company is different. And many more but I think you get my point already.

As the project results into a unique product or service, the characteristics of the product or services should be defined clearly in the project scope. This is usually clearly stated in the contract if the project involves other party outside the company.

Why PMBOK is commonly used in project management?

In implementing a new system to a company, project management is the key in planning, staffing, executing and monitoring the whole process. Project implementors often use different approach to make sure that the system can be implemented with minimal risk. In general, this methodology for project management can be generalized into several steps. Most well known project management is PMBOK.

PMBOK stands for Project Management Body of Knowledge. It is combination of knowledge in the area of project management. It becomes a standard of project management because it has been proven in many project managements. It is a practice or methodology that is generally accepted. Generally accepted means that it could be applied to any projects in general. However, generally accepted means as well that in some of the projects, some methodologies are not obligatory.

PMBOK can be used by anyone interested in the project management, namely:
• Project managers
• Project team members
• Managers of project manager
• Customer of the project or project’s stockholder
• Consultant involved in the project management
• Trainers or educator in the area of project management

PMBOK can be summarized into 5 general processes:
1. Initiating Processes – in first step is to recognize that the project should begin. Commitment from all parties should be available to initiate the project.
2. Planning Processes – the process should define a workable scheme to achieve the goal of the project.
3. Executing Processes – in this process, the available human resources and other resources should be coordinated to carry out the plan.
4. Controlling Processes – measurement to detect any deviation from the goal and plan should be implemented. Necessary corrective action should be imposed to align the project into the plan.
5. Closing Processes – the project should end and acceptable by all parties. This step is related to formalize the closing of the project.

In next posts/articles, I will discuss in details about each processes and everything related to project management to ensure you do not miss the concepts of it. Make sure you sign up in our mailing list (you can find on upper left of the site) to be notified for any new post related to project management.