University of New South Wales

Project Management
Web based Tutorials

Report #1

Lessons for an Accidental Profession

Authors: J.K Pinto & O.P Kharbanda

Team members:
- Guajardo Perez, Karina.
- Nguyen, Quang.
- Tang, Shengze.
- Yang, Xiaojian.
Project 1: Lessons for an accidental profession

Index

Introduction...................................................................................................................3
Report Question 1 .........................................................................................................4
Report Question 2 .........................................................................................................9
Report Question 3 .......................................................................................................10
Report Question 4 .......................................................................................................11
Report Question 5 .......................................................................................................12
Team Members Performance and Grade......................................................................13
Summary of Activity...................................................................................................16

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Project 1: Lessons for an accidental profession

Introduction

During the last days, several Concepts have been learnt about Project Management due
to an activity related to an article entitled Lessons for an accidental Profession. The
meaning of this phrase is explain why project managers can achieve important skills by
happenstance. In the following report all the comments of the team member has been
considered as crucial contributions, some of them has been chosen and some other has
been avoided as part of a decision process by the project manager of the team according
to develop the best work. In the first part, the answer of the five questions will be
reported followed by the report of the performance of team members and also project
manager performance will be discussed. Finally, a summary will be shown with what
has been learnt and what can be improved.

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Project 1: Lessons for an accidental profession

Report Question 1

What are the reasons the author advances for project management to be considered an
accidental profession? The twelve guidelines are presented in no particular order.
Order them by level of importance and explain your reasoning.

Question one is divided in two parts:

First part of the question:

In the first part of the Question there are two main reasons that the author says about
why project management is considered an accidental profession:

1.1 Although there are programs to train project managers, this results at best as an ad
hoc training. Because the programs do not give the skills to succeed, the skills can
be learned by happenstance.

The meaning of this is that it is important to recognize that Project Managers can be
trained by programs, but be trained is not good enough, because there are important
skills that are developed just by experience. For example, to have good response to
risks, it is important to recognize them and prevent them, many of them probably
are impossible to prevent but in that case at least it is good to have a good response
to them. But, with no experience, it would be very difficult to sort the risks if project
manager have not being through risk situations before.

Another important issue for project managers is dealing with different kind of
professionals. This is something that can not be trained because is almost impossible
to categorize people as they are all different. That is an example of why project
managers have to learn of the experience, and also put an eye on psychological
matters to give support to their teams.

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Project 1: Lessons for an accidental profession

1.2 As a second reason, the author mentions that Project Management is not a well-
defined career path. Generally the role is thrust upon people, rather than being
sought.

Project Manager is a leader, so it has to motivate people to pursue a goal rather than
being motivated or followed. Good project managers are facilitators so they have to
be on service of all the needs of the project and also people. Sometimes this could
be a hard mission, and not easy to achieve. PM to succeed have to do a big labour
within projects, and sometimes there is a misunderstanding about what project
management exactly means.

In general, a good PM has to have both, training and experience. This is why this career
path can be considered as an Accidental Profession. It can be trained but it is
composed by different skills that can only be achieved by experience.

Second part of the question:

The second part of the question is to organize the guidelines in order of priority. It is
important to mention that those guidelines were created by a study made to a
considerable number of successful project managers. The main idea was to find the
main skills that a project manager has to have to be successful.

Following this point of view, it is possible to classify the guidelines in three groups
which represent the three more important skills that a project manager has to develop:

1. Understanding.
2. People.
3. Planning.

The order of the groups was made following the reasoning that first of all it is important
to understand what has to be done, then it is needed to establish the people who will be
involved in the project and finally, the planning can be done.

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Project 1: Lessons for an accidental profession

1. Understanding: This means that a PM has to understand what is the focus of the
project, in other words, it is needed to know what has to be done before start doing it.

The order of priority within this group is showed below:

- Understanding the context of Project Management: This guideline is in the

first place because the starting point of project management it is the
understanding of what is the job, otherwise nothing can be done properly.

- Understand who the stakeholders are and what they want: After having a clear
idea of what involves being a project manager, it is essential to know what the
requirements of the project are. This is the beginning of the project, set the
requirements and this can be done trough a good understanding of who the
stakeholders are and what they want at the end of the project.

- Accept the political nature of organizations and use it to your advantage: In

this point, the author comments that important decisions involving resources are
made through deal-making. Once the political nature of the organizations is
accepted it is possible to take advantage of them, and this leads to make the best
decisions for example in terms of resources. But before to accept this argument
it is fundamental to understand what the benefits of the acceptance are, that is
the reason of why this point is categorized under understanding. Because this
point is crucial to understand it and achieve it as a skill, before to start dealing
with the organization.

- Understand what success means: This guideline is useful to understand in terms

of attitude in the development of the project. Understand what success means is
about on focussing in pursues the goal which is finalizing the project.

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2. People: The most important resource for a project is human resource, because
projects are developed by people.

The order of this group was made as follows:

- Lead from the front; the view is better: This guideline is about leadership, it is
related on how will be the attitude of the project manager in front of the team.
Before to build a team is important to know how to build it, and to establish the
right people and motivate them it is necessary to have leadership.

- Build and maintain a cohesive team: This guideline is in the second place of
this group because after start working with people is important to build a
cohesive team.

- Recognize project team conflict as progress: Once the team is settled and the
project is on course, it is necessary to focus on the maintaining of the cohesive
team, this skill is about to take in consideration of the conflicts and move
forward overcoming them and not force them below the surface.

- Enthusiasm and despair are both infectious: During the course of the project it
is important to know how to show the right attitude to the team towards to have
a good result, this means that emotions have to be balanced to maintain the team
motivated, because too much enthusiasm could shows to the team that
everything is perfect and this could leads to the team to relax.

2.3 Planning: This is important to have control of the process of the project accordingly
with timing and budget.

In the group of planning the next four guidelines are in order of priority:

- Above all, plan, plan, plan: As the phrase said, above all, plan. This means
everything has to be planned from the beginning. It is crucial, in terms that if
something is wrong with the plan, it will be also wrong with the project. Time
has a big value and it has to be used efficiently.

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Project 1: Lessons for an accidental profession

- One look forward is worth two looks back: This guideline is related to risks. It
is important identify the risks of the project from the start this would allows the
project manager to plan possible solutions or responses in case of any risk
become a real problem.
- Use time carefully or it will use you: After the plan is done it is important to
control that it is respected. This point is about controlling time, following the
planning and not loosing time in other issues of the project.
- Remember what you are trying to do: As the point above explain, it is crucial
to use time efficiently and respect the planning day after day. But, it is also
important to focus on the final goal and do not being focused just in a daily
basis.

Finally, after the division of the groups and having the order within each group, it is
possible to define the order of priority for all guidelines:

1. Understanding the context of Project Management.

2. Accept the political nature of organizations and use it to your advantage.
3. Understand what success means.
4. Lead from the front; the view is better.
5. Build and maintain a cohesive team.
6. Recognize project team conflict as progress.
7. Enthusiasm and despair are both infectious.
8. Above all, plan, plan, plan.
9. One look forward is worth two looks back.
10. Use time carefully or it will use you.
11. Remember what you are trying to do.

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Report Question 2

This question was about to put ourselves on one of the following categories:

Naives: Refusing to engage in politics any degree.

Sensible: Politically sensitive to the concerns of powerful stakeholders group.
Sharks: Overly political and predatory.

The team members discussed the characteristics of those three groups in a separated
way as follows:

1. Underlying Attitude: Politics is necessary but also can be an opportunity in

terms of using them in the right way it is possible to take advantage of them.
Although there are some characteristics of sharks we put ourselves on Sensible
for this one.
2. Intent: Sensible.
3. Techniques: Sensible, it is very important to take in consideration the network,
using the system is also working as a team which is very important in any
organization.
4. Favourite Tactics: Sensible, it is crucial to negotiate to obtain what is needed.
But also some times is common to use friends and contacts to obtain
information, this sometimes is beneficial, but it has to be used in a mature way,
in this case it is thought that belongs to sensible group.

After the description of all the characteristics, although there are some thoughts about
other tendance, the overall says that the right political behaviour for the group is
Sensible.

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Report Question 3

Understanding the reasons of the project in the first place is very important because
before start doing something it is needed to know what has to be done. The guidelines
chosen for this group are those listed below:

- Understanding the context of Project Management: This guideline is important

in terms that the project manager needs to understand what is the role that has to
be played and also the challenges faced. Otherwise, nothing can be done
properly.

- Understand who the stakeholders are and what they want: Stakeholders can be
considered as the big bosses and understanding what they want will help to
know what should be done.

- Accept the political nature of organizations and use it to your advantage:

Political nature of organizations sometimes can be a restriction but also can be
considered as an opportunity. Understanding what is the ground settled is
beneficial to develop the tasks in the best way possible

- Understand what success means: Project is only good as they used. For this
reason is very much important to realize that the final goal is the final success of
the project. In spite of a good development during the process the focus always
has to be settled on finalize the project under the budget, time, planning, etc.

The importance of understanding those guidelines above is related to the beginning of

the project, if in this part the project manager has a good understanding, the basis of the
project can be settled on a good way.

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Report Question 4

This question is related about the thought What if which is related with One look
forward is worth two looks back
This means that it is important to think in forward and do not be so confident about the
status of the project because things can change suddenly and as a PM it is very
important to have a contingency plan to response. Even if the project course is going
well, on time and under budget it is crucial to think about possible future risks and
probably is not possible to stop them but it is possible to create a proper response and
keep the project safe.
That is the reason for the question What if? is a way to explain the attitude of the
project manager in terms of looking forward, previewing what could happen next, and
what could be risky for the project. No one can predict exactly what will happen in the
future, but thinking about possible changes will allows recognizing some effects to the
project and creating good responses to face the challenges. An example of this could be
the economic crisis of those days, which could affect the scenario of many projects. In
this case would be very important to analyse the variables of the project which are
related with this scenario and try to create good responses. On the other hand, this
thinking could bring positive facts to the project. Some good opportunities also can
appear in the future and if the project manager has this thinking probably could take
advantage of them.
Without this attitude, probably too much confidence could be put on the project and if
something happens, no matter what, the project will be in dangerous because no plan of
contingency has been prepared. Also, good opportunities can be missed.

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Project 1: Lessons for an accidental profession

Report Question 5

This question is about drawing the line between planning enough and planning to much.

First of all, planning is a critical stage on a project. It should involve a hard work and
also several days. It is very important to plan enough but at the first place, at the
beginning of the project. After the plan is done is necessary start working on what has
been planned, of course some changes could appear, but if a good plan has done, then
would be possible to face the changes in a flexible way maintaining everything under
control. The phrase above all, plan, plan, plan means that above any activity a plan
has to be settled, but this does not mean that when the project is on course the plan has
to be still on process.

The plan also has to include schedule, budget and the responsibility of each member of
the project, thanks to this a process can be developed, maintaining clear what are the
stages of the project and what activities has to be done first. Those are the reasons of the
importance of planning, but spending too much time on this part also will delay the
starting point of the project.

In conclusion, the importance of the planning is evident, but the line is that job has to be
done at the beginning of the project. Probably some variables can be settled on the
future of the project, but a good plan should cover possible changes and future risks, so
the plan can be updated on the future.

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Project 1: Lessons for an accidental profession

Team Members Performance and Grade

The evaluation of team members has been done in a way that on my opinion is fair. For
this reason I have stated some important points that should be developed and I have
assigned points on each performance.

Performance Points
Participation: This means that if preoccupation has been shown to the 4
discussion, giving comments and feedback to other team members
comments.
Consistent Comments: This is related to the consistency of each comment 3
based on content and also in presentation and vocabulary.
Plan Following. 1
Supportive and Cooperative Attitude to others team members. 2

I have put together performance and grade of each, so I will explain what I have seen of
each of them.

1. guyen, Quang

Performance Mark
Participation 4/4
Consistent Comment 3/3
Plan Following 1/1
Attitude 2/2
Total Score 10

This team member has done a very good job during the whole project. He has made
consistent comments in order, explaining very well his opinion, well structured, good
vocabulary and showing preoccupation and commitment to the team. Also he has been
trying to put all the concepts on real life which is very useful not just for him but also
for the rest of team members.

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In some cases he had different opinions but he showed them with respect, giving very
good arguments to set his point of view which means that he had a very good attitude to
the team. Well done!

2. Tang Shengze

Performance Mark
Participation 2/4
Consistent Comment 3/3
Plan Following 1/1
Attitude 2/2
Total Score 8

This team member has shown very good comment, consistent and giving good
explanation of his opinions, he followed the planning and also had a good attitude in
response to the comments of the rest which was very important because at the beginning
of the project we settled that our teacher was as our client, for that reason we should
show consistent comments, and also respect each other and giving each other support,
this team member has showed all this attributes, but unfortunately he did not show up so
often to the discussion, at the beginning he had some troubles but he did not put
feedback to other comments and that is the reason that I gave to him tha half of the mark
on participation.

3. Yang, Xiaojian

Performance Mark
Participation 4/4
Consistent Comment 2/3
Plan Following 1/1
Attitude 1/2
Total Score 9

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This team member has done a very good job in terms of participation. He was giving
feedback most of time to others team members and giving his point of view, he
followed the plan settled at the beginning, although he started to do comments after we
finished first and second question, but is not relevant because he gave his comments
before the dead line. On the other hand, the comments of this team members some times
included some abbreviations and not proper language which does not show
preoccupation about the vocabulary of the comments that is the reason that I gave less
mark on this part. Also, some times the comments showed were not clear and not well
structured which was difficult to understand.

4. Project manager evaluation: Karina Guajardo

I have evaluated my self under the same marks. I was very committed to the team
during the whole project, I have checked every day all the comments and Tried to
motivate them most of time. Also, I tried to give consistent comments to everybody
with good vocabulary.
I gave my self less mark on participation because I think that participation was not
enough the last two days because I had some issues and I could not read all the
comments of the team members.

Performance Mark
Participation 3/4
Consistent Comment 3/3
Plan Following 1/1
Attitude 2/2
Total Score 9

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Summary of Activity

The activity was very useful in terms of understanding what the bases of any project are
in terms of:

- Understanding
- Planning
- Responsibilities.
- People

The continual review of the concepts has allow to each team member to analyse what
we are really learning and even was very interesting to put in practice a way to see
project management on real life.

On the other hand, as a project manager in this opportunity I could see the importance
of working as a team. Accepting others different opinions, learning about other people
thought was very interesting. Some times we can be very sure about something but
another appears with a different point of view and gives us more range of possibilities.
The importance of this view is to be opened mind and consider the rest opinion, this will
improve ours.

Motivation is another point that I would like to remark, because some times when we
are in charge of something we would like to everybody follows with our project, but if
people is not motivated it is very difficult. For a project manager is very difficult to deal
with people and be persuasive, it is very complicated to try to do some criticism and not
hurt others feelings, as our topic said, I think is something that it can be learnt by
experience.

Another important view is support, as a team we can support each other and be
cooperative with others tasks, is the best way to carry out a successful project. The
result of the task is the sum of what we have done as a team, not one person
individually.

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As team member as well as project manager, it is important to prepare the job first, try
to think what is our point of view and then communicate to the rest, not make comments
in a rush, because a good discussion can be developed when we set our thoughts
properly and well explained at the first place.

In the future, I can be beneficiated with this experience about to be more cooperative in
to the team, also to the project manager, because could be a hard task to motivate. This
is the point that I think can be developed in the future, motivation of the team members
to be prepared to argue and make comments to the rest, better ideas can show up and the
work improved.

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