Project Management For Dummies. Stanley E. Portny
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methodology, for example, was first conceptualized only slightly more than 20 years ago (see Chapter 18 for more on Agile). This fundamental change to the field of project management eventually required practitioners to evolve or be left behind.
As a principle of project management, change refers to the necessary mindset to ensure the acceptance and adoption of your project’s outcomes. If your project is to develop a new widget, the end users of that widget will need to change how they currently operate to effectively utilize your new widget. Change management is a discipline in and of itself. It’s no longer a nice-to-have, but rather a must-have, when considering the introduction of any substantial organizational, systemic, or otherwise impactful change.
What Happened to Process Groups and Knowledge Areas?
You may be wondering, now that we’ve reviewed the new project management principles, whether the process groups and knowledge areas from prior PMBOK editions have disappeared entirely, never to be mentioned in the context of project management again? Well, of course that isn’t the case! While many terms have changed and concepts have been updated, it is important to retain an appreciation of the way things were, because you never know when it’ll prove valuable to you.
Figure 1-2 is a straightforward and comprehensive mapping of PMBOK 7 performance domains with PMBOK 7 project management principles, PMBOK 6 life cycle phases, and PMBOK 6 knowledge areas. This matrix view shows where each of these concepts intersect.
We won’t go into nearly as much detail on performance domains as we have on project management principles in this chapter. The performance domains are applications of the project management principles over the course of a project. Principles are closely correlated to the performance domains and, in fact, many principles even share similar names as their corresponding performance domains. The principles of project management are intended to guide the behaviors exhibited through each of the project performance domains.
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FIGURE 1-2: Mapping principles, phases, and knowledge areas to performance domains.
Do You Have What It Takes to Be an Effective Project Manager?
You’re reading this book because you want to be a better project manager, right? Well, before you jump in much further, we suggest you do a quick self-evaluation to identify your strengths and weaknesses. By answering the following ten questions, you can get an idea of what subjects you need to spend more time on so you can be as effective as possible. Good luck!
Questions
1 Are you more concerned about being everyone’s friend or getting a job done right?
2 Do you prefer to do technical work or manage other people doing technical work?
3 Do you think the best way to get a tough task done is to do it yourself?
4 Do you prefer your work to be predictable or constantly changing?
5 Do you prefer to spend your time developing ideas rather than explaining those ideas to other people?
6 Do you handle crises well?
7 Do you prefer to work by yourself or with others?
8 Do you think you shouldn’t have to monitor people after they’ve promised to do a task for you?
9 Do you believe people should be self-motivated to perform their jobs?
10 Are you comfortable dealing with people at all organizational levels?
Answer key
1 Although maintaining good working relations is important, the project manager often must make decisions that some people don’t agree with for the good of the project.
2 Most project managers achieve their positions because of their strong performance on technical tasks. However, after you become a project manager, your job is to encourage other people to produce high-quality technical work rather than to do it all yourself.
3 Believing in yourself is important. However, the project manager’s task is to help other people develop to the point where they can perform tasks with the highest quality.
4 The project manager tries to minimize unexpected problems and situations through responsive planning and timely control. However, projects are not always predictable and when problems do occur, the project manager must deal with them promptly to minimize their impact on the project.
5 Though coming up with ideas can help your project, the project manager’s main responsibility is to ensure that every team member correctly understands all ideas that are developed.
6 The project manager’s job is to provide a cool head to size up the situation, choose the best action, and encourage all members to do their parts in implementing the solution.
7 Self-reliance and self-motivation are important characteristics for a project manager. However, the key to any project manager’s success is to facilitate interaction among a diverse group of specialists.
8 Although you may feel (and we agree) that honoring one’s commitments is a fundamental element of professional behavior, the project manager needs both to ensure that people maintain their focus and to model how to work cooperatively with others.
9 People should be self-motivated, but the project manager has to encourage them to remain motivated by their job assignments and related opportunities.
10 The project manager routinely deals with people at all levels — from executive leadership to support staff — who perform project-related activities.
Relating This Chapter to the PMP Exam and PMBOK 7
Pay special attention to Table 1-1, which notes topics in this chapter that may be addressed on the Project Management Professional (PMP) certification exam and that are included in A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge, 7th Edition (PMBOK 7).
TABLE 1-1 Chapter 1 Topics