Episode 211: Project Management for Non-Project Managers
The projects that you and I manage are crucial to implement change within our organizations. To succeed, w
e routinely depend on the functional managers - the person who runs the department or division, who resolves day-to-day operational issues, and who is responsible for ensuring that the project team has the resources it needs and keeps its goals aligned with the company’s overall strategy and vision.
Unfortunately, there are only few functional managers who speak our language or even have firm grasp on the most fundamental of project processes. Too often, this knowledge gap leads to poor communications, conflict, schedule delays, cost overruns and lost business opportunity.
And who gets the blame? Yup... we do.
To help bridge this gap we are interviewing Jack Ferraro, PMP (www.myprojectadvisor.com) who wrote the book “Project Management for Non-Project Managers”. We discuss the many ways in which functional managers can get involved in project success and we also discuss the four key project management skills that any functional manager needs:
- Articulating the real customer need and business case
- Staying focused on project deliverables
- Understanding your key dependencies
- Being proactive about project risk.