7.  Project Manager's Responsibility

1.

From the description of the project life span, it is clear that the PM's job is to focus the project's available resources on delivering results.

2.

To this end, an important function of the project manager in planning the work is to sort out the different jobs, tasks, or "work packages".

As described earlier, a work package is a unit of work within the scope of the original project intent and its boundaries.

To complete the project successfully, these must all be done at the right time, in the right place, and by the right people.

3.

In all but the smallest projects, you will need a project team of diverse people to do these work units. That's because inevitably different talents, skills and capabilities will be involved.

So you must recruit a team of people to do the various types of work.

4.

This is not as simple as it sounds because, by definition, a project is something that has not been done before or, at least, not done exactly the same.

So a project involves a stream of problem-solving and decision-making.

5.

Hence, the individuals you are looking for require intelligence and motivation as well as skills.

• Intelligence, because making good decisions about the "what" requires keen judgment.
• Motivation, because it fuels the "Why" and inspires others to go above and beyond the call of duty, and
• Skills, because these encompass the capability and capacity required to get the "How" done.

6.

It cannot be emphasized too strongly that for a successful project, potential candidates must possess sufficient capability in all three of these attributes.

However, although the best candidates may be balanced in all three, it is rare to find those who are superior in all three.

Therefore, the best teams have members whose strengths, and weaknesses, are complimentary.

In addition, somewhere along the line in most projects, we find we will likely need talents that are very specialized to cope with the project in hand.