Week 2

Who is a project manager?

Shepherd projects from start to finish and serves as guides for their team, using their impeccable organizational and interpersonal skills every step of the way

What are the main ways in which project managers can add value to projects and impact organizations?

1. Focusing on the customer 2. Building a great team - project managers add value to the project by identifying the right team for the project and enabling the team to be successful and make decisions 3. Fostering relationships and communication - The project managers who add the most value are the ones who take the time to build relationships, communicate, and treat others with consideration and respect 4. Managing the project - A successful project manager sees the impact of each process within the project and communicates those impacts to the team 5. Breaking down barriers - A project manager adds value to a project when they break down barriers, allow their team to innovate new ways to do things, and empower them to share ideas. As a project manager, you have to model ingenuity and collaboration and encourage your team to do the same

What is a cross-functional team?

A team that includes members who have different backgrounds, types of expertise, and job functions.

What is a project task?

An activity that needs to be accomplished within a set period of time by you, your team, or your stakeholders

What is the project manager responsible for on a team?

Guiding the team and making sure they have the support that they need. This is done by 1. Holding all team members accountable for their assigned task 2. Ensure that issues and risks are tracked and visible, and establish escalation paths 3. Understand and help teammates to adopt the right workflows and project management styles 4. Collaborate with other teams at the organization to deliver solutions that meet the requirements based on project scope, schedule, and budget

_____ is how a project manager makes use of productivity tools and creates processes. The project manager may need to use certain tools and processes to do tasks like create a schedule and share information

Planning and organizing

What is float, or slack, in the schedule?

Refers to the amount of time you can wait to begin a task before it impacts the project schedule and threatens the project outcome

Sometimes, the members of a cross functional team are referred to as

T-shaped professionals

What are interpersonal skills?

The behaviors you use to interact with others, such as 1. Teaching and mentoring 2. Building relationships 3. Controlling change 4. Empowering your team 5. Communicating status and concerns

Depending on the project and organization, a project manager may also have responsibilities that utilize your

interpersonal skills

Project managers add value to their teams and organizations in key ways that include

1. Prioritization 2. Delegation 3. Effective communication

What are some flexible planning strategies that can help you manage your project during times of unpredictability?

1. Assess external constraints - When planning your project, take external events into account, such as national holidays and team member vacations, and sick leave. 2. Plan for risks and challenges - If you consider the risk that may occur, you may be able to find solutions for them in advance. 3. Calculate "float" in your schedule - Identifying float in your schedule can help with resource management, scheduling, and keeping up your project on track.

Managing cross-functional teams effectively requires the project manager to:

1. Clarify goals 2. Get team members with the right skills 3. Measure progress - Meeting key milestones, completing project tasks, and meeting project goals on time and within budget. 4. Recognize efforts

What are some of the most valuable interpersonal skills required to be a successful project manager?

1. Enabling decision making - The ability to enable decision making on the team, or gather decisions from the appropriate leader is crucial to keep projects on task and achieve their goals. As a project manager, you will need to enable decisions frequently. 2. Communicating and escalating - As a project manager, you'll use your communication skills in just about everything you do. And you need to know when it is appropriate to escalate so that critical issues are raised and addressed as soon as possible to reduce negative impact on a project. 3. Remaining flexible - As a project manager, knowing how to be flexible when changes are needed is key. Plans will change — even with careful, upfront planning. As a project manager being flexible is critical to be able to course correct and adapt when the unexpected happens. 4. Organizational skills - Having strong organizational skills means having the ability to organize the core elements of a project and ensure nothing gets lost or overlooked. A project manager needs to be organized so that they can manage a project and all of its moving parts. 5. Negotiation - As a project manager, you'll have to know how to balance the needs of your teammates with the needs of the project. For example, if a teammate says they can't complete their work on time, you may need to compromise on a deadline. 6. Conflict mediation - Resolving tension and conflict within a team is an important skill. This may involve setting up a meeting with two teammates that are struggling to agree upon the best way to handle a shared task. 7. Understanding motivations - Getting to know your teammates and figuring out what pushes them to their best work is an effective skill to have. Understanding motivations also involves understanding how your teammates prefer to receive feedback.

What are the core skills for successful project management?

1. Enabling decision making - You can help team members feel empowered from the start of your project by making the decision-making process collaborative. 2. Communicating and escalating - When escalation is required, try to approach management with both the problem and the potential solution or suggestions. 3. Flexibility 4. Strong organizational skills - One way to stay organized is by utilizing the abundance of organizational tools available such as: (a) Planning and scheduling software (templates, workflows, calendars) (b) Collaboration tools (emails, collaboration software, dashboards) (c) Documentation (files, plans, spreadsheets) (d) Quality assurance tools (evaluations, productivity trackers, reports)

What are some different ways to help your team deal with ambiguity?

1. Keep calm 2. Express empathy 3. Communicate what you know clearly 4. Make decisions and stick to them 5. Trust the expertise of your team

What are the responsibilities under planning and organization

1. Making use of productivity tools and creating processes 2. Create plans, timelines, schedules, and other forms of documentation to track project completion

What are the responsibilities under budgeting and controlling costs and other factors

1. Monitor and manage the budget 2. Track issues and risks 3. Manage quality 4. Remove unforeseen barriers

What are the key project manager roles and responsibilities?

1. Planning and organization 2. Managing tasks 3. Budgeting and controlling costs and other factors

_____ is how a project manager oversees the financial components of a project and mitigates project issues and risk as they come up.

Budgeting and cost controlling

________ is how a project manager keeps track of the team's workload, ensures that things are getting done within a set period of time, and demonstrate progress to people outside the immediate team, like stakeholders

Managing task

Fill in the blank: A cross-functional project team is a team that has _______

diverse skill sets and work toward a common goal.