The field of project management has a lot of opportunities for career growth for people that want to manage small, medium, and large scale projects. The project management discipline is very vital to the growth of an organization in helping them to build a competitive advantage against their competitors in the industry that they operate in. Companies use projects to implement new services, build new products, build new capabilities, and to act as change agents in their organization. Projects are differentiated from operational work in that they have a definitive start and end date.
There are no defined end dates for operational work which is part of the core activities that support the business functions of the corporation. The chance of working on a project can provide you with the valuable experience that you need to work with different clients, team members, and problems. The experience that project managers learn through the daily challenges of guiding a team towards success increases the capabilities of the organization to handle the different demands of the corporation to meet the competitiveness of the market. In order for project managers to be successful they need to understand the type of challenges that may come towards them when they start a new project. We have listed several challenges that project managers may face when leading a project below:
Organizational Structure
The type of organization structure in a company can have a dramatic affect on the ability of a project manager to lead their staff accordingly. For example, an organization that has resources which are matrix to other departments and are borrowed for projects demotes the authority level of project managers. This is especially true if project managers have no input into the resources performance evaluations. Project staff members will tend not to listen as much to their project manager but more to their functional manager based on the organizational chart. Project managers would have a major issue in getting their staff to work on project work when there are no repercussions if they do not meet deadlines.
Communication and Collaboration
Project managers have the challenge of constantly making sure that communication and collaboration is occurring across teams, with the client, and within the group. This may sound as an easy problem to solve but this is one of the most difficult issues that face managers all the time. There are so many levels of communication that are occurring throughout the project team that if communications are not aligned with what the project manager is telling the customer then this will cause major discrepancies and issues for the project team.
Customers
If you are one of the lucky few to work with a customer that is not demanding, does not care about a schedule, and money is no object then you have a really easy project. Most project managers have to face the challenge of not having enough resources to work on the project, the client wants the final product completed immediately, the requirements are not fully defined, and the customer is thinking of shutting down your project. The demands of customers must be met as the most important criteria for project success.
Politics
Project managers have to deal with the politics that occur within the organization. There are so many different views and opinions on what the final deliverable or service should be that it causes a lot of anxiety on the project team. Project managers need to make sure that all stakeholders are identified and have a voice in what needs to be performed by the project team. The project manager also needs to make sure that there is an executive sponsor that is backing the project and will champion the need of the project to the organization.
Resources
The most obvious issue for project managers is not having the right level of talent or resources available to support the project work. There is usually more than one project that is occurring in a company at any one time and most projects managers go after the same resources. This is sort of like when you are in school picking people to play on your team in a football game. Team leads pick the best people first in the order of their skills. In the corporate world, we are not afforded the luxury of taking turns in picking resources. There are usually a lot of negotiations in trying to get the resources that you need to get the work done. One thing that you will see as a project manager is that a lot of conflict occurs between project managers on trying to get the best people. Everyone wants to be successful and good people are part of the equation of having a successful project.
There are so many challenges that face project managers in this field but the completion of the project and a happy customer is one the most satisfying accomplishments that you can earn for a job well done. The project management field provides the opportunities and advancement to move up in an organization that allows you gain more influence in the decision making process.
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