Exercise 1

Schwalbe P.34 - Chapter 1, Ex 2

2. Find someone who works as a project manager or is a member of a project team. Prepare several interview questions, and then ask them your questions in person, via the phone, or via the internet. Write a one-page summary of your findings.

Diti Stavrianos is a project manager for Optus Admin, one of the leading telecommunications companies in Australia. She has been working in the telecommunications industry for the last 10 years, and has been working as a project manager, specifically in the IT unit of Optus for the last 5 years. Diti works within the Consumer space of the company, and her projects mainly focus on the implementation of new systems and applications to support the launch of new products to the market space. Her most recent project was to implement a billing system capable of handling bundled products available to the consumer, titled Project Fusion. The bundled products were launched to the market place in July 07, and the project was successfully implemented at the same time; only 2 weeks after the scheduled launch date.

An interview was scheduled for Monday 13th August 07 at 9am via teleconference. Below are some of the questions and answers taken from that particular meeting.

1. How would you commence a project?

The best way to start a project is to PLAN and really find out what it is that the project needs to deliver. I often find that it is best to spend some time with the people requesting for the project to be done. Some of the questions I like to find the answers to include:
- Who are the key stakeholders and what do they see as their role in the project?
- What are the goals of the project?
- What is their perspective of what the project is all about?
- What are the expectations of the outcome?

In my initial steps, I also like to find out what the key attributes of the project are including:
- Scope
- Time
- Budget / Cost

From there I have a better understanding of what’s involved with the project.

2. If you were to deliver a project to a customer that needed the use of external vendors, how would you manage the vendor and what contractual agreements would you put in place?

In my position I deal with vendors on a daily basis. The single most important contractual agreement you can have with a vendor is to create a Statement of Work (SOW) that is signed off by both companies. SOWs are so incredibly important when it comes to large and complex systems, as they detail the work requirements in a written context and do so in a definitive and precise language and terminology. Their purpose of a SOW can really benefit the vendor as well as the company. Many a times have we been able to tell the vendors to change the way they are doing something, because it is according to the SOW that it should be done differently. Similarly, if we as a company request for more things on top of the initial requirements and deliverables, then the vendor has the right to charge the company more.

Having the ‘rules and what needs to be done’ written on paper will save any project manager a lot of hassles in the end. It is the wisest and most absolutely necessary thing to have when dealing with vendors.

3. What metrics would you expect to use to determine the on-going success of your project?

I always have to stick to my project plan. If I allocate a certain amount of time or money on something, and it changes, then I do almost anything I can to get it back to where I wanted it to be. E.g. when a task starts taking a little longer than what I initially thought it would, I might try to allocate more resources or ask for extra hours to be done.

4. How are your soft skills? Can you "sell" the project to a team?

I do adopt a more ‘tell’ approach to my team. Because I consistently work with different teams, it takes too long to develop a relationship where I ask them what they think, and they can then have the opportunity to come back to me with comments. I have found from past projects that if you get in there, tell them what needs to be done (as well as trying to sell it along the process) makes the stages of the project fall into place much quicker.

Most business owners want projects to be completed quickly and efficiently, and it is best as a project manager to demand a certain level of respect from the very beginning. Without sounding too harsh, it helps later on into the project when deadlines are approaching and you need to become more demanding.

5. Have you ever had a team member who is not meeting his commitments, what did you do?

ALWAYS! I find the best way too deal with an underperforming team member is to meet with them individually and discuss my concerns. Most of the time there is always a contributing factor to their performance, including family commitments, pressure from other departments within the organization, or just time. Usually speaking with them and keeping tabs on them consistently helps lessen the pains of the situation.

6. Do you think being a good project manager is made up of someone who has the technical skills or someone who has the people skills?

I’d say that 80% of the skills necessary for a project manager come from management / people skills and the remaining 20% comes from technical skills. A good project manager is someone who can control the people within the team, and still have a good understanding of the technological side of things.

7. How many projects you handled in the past? Deadlines met? On time/ within budget? Obstacles you had to overcome?

I manage approximately 7 projects a year and most of them run parallel to each other. Honestly, most projects never get completed on time, but that is also because of poor time scoping from the business sector. The main obstacles that every project needs to overcome are time and money. Money is very difficult to obtain, so you need to work with what you get! Time is something you need to be able to control, but usually having more money makes time less of an issue as you can find more resources to get the project done quicker.

8. Does your company ask you to follow any particular models?

Yes we follow the Waterfall Model of Scope, Initial Investigation, Design Implementation and Verification, and Maintenance.

9. What strengths does a good project manager need to have?

Definitely people skills are needed, but the biggest thing is to have great time management skills. Planning is absolutely necessary and without it, the time management section would be highly affected.

What was found from that meeting was the fact that how important and crucial it is to be involved at a macro level of each project. A good project manager needs to be more of a people’s manager, than to be a technical manager and also needs to plan a project effectively in regards to time, cost and project deliverables.

It was also very evident, that it is extremely necessary to have the goals of your key stakeholders in mind the entire way of the project. Keeping them happy means that the project is running as initially thought, and then there will be less resistance to problems coming along the way.