Successful projects rely on three mutually dependant aspects – Time, Resources and Costs. The successful Project Manager knows how to balance these three elements to ensure the optimum mix. And the optimum mix ensures a successful project.
All businesses and organisations, even though their main activities are not project-based still need to undertake projects from time to time. Such businesses are what we call process based – they do things based on a process, like sell groceries, manufacture clocks, run transaction processing centres and the like. Their management culture is familiar with managing everyday business activities and operations – not projects! This is especially true for banks and financial institutions.
A critical aspect of the project always is the Resources part – specifically Human Resources.
The people in such process-based organisations who are asked to participate in projects, like in a bank or financial institution may be accountants, financial specialists, IT professionals, operations professionals, managers, clerks or just about any profession. They are not first and foremost project managers - yet they are expected to manage projects as if they are. Very often these large projects will play a major part in determining the business/organisation's future success.
Project management methodologies always start from the presumption that a dedicated professional project team is available and that all of the team members will work full time on the project. The reality of the situation is that this is not true.
In process-based environments, such as a bank, this assumption is almost never correct. This assumption overlooks many of the major challenges that project managers face.
Let us consider what some of these are;
- A project is seen by many team members as a hindrance – it is not their "proper job",
- By the nature of their regular work team members may be allocated to a project only on a part-time basis,
- All too often being assigned to a project is seen as a career limiting move,
- Senior managers may not always give projects and project managers the support they need.
- Very often too, non-IT people find themselves involved in "IT" projects. "IT" has been placed in quotes because there is no such thing as a pure IT project, but rather business projects, which involve IT, to a greater or lesser degree.
These then are just some of the challenges that a Project Manager faces in trying to meet his deliverables in terms of his or her project.