Unknowingly, I have been working in an IT company for more than ten years. From doing R&D work in the first year, to serving as the project sub-project leader in the second year, and later as project director, technical manager, and R&D director, I have already worked in various positions. Countless multiple projects. The more than ten years are also the most important time in the author's life. I have experienced the transformation from a student to a technician and from a technician to a project supervisor and then to a general manager.
Today I will mainly talk about some experiences in project management. As a project manager, the most worrying thing at work is project management. To be fair, the company does not pay much attention to the study of project management methods and laws. Many specific details are operated entirely by relying on the intuition of the project manager and a little experience of old comrades. After encountering a large number of problems, the author also began to explore some rules and discussed with colleagues online, and summarized a little bit of his own opinions. What is project management?
After people's long-term exploration and summary, project management has gradually developed into an independent discipline system in developed countries, becoming an important branch of modern management, and is widely used in many industries such as IT , finance, services, aerospace, and engineering. Due to its attractive high annual salary and wide employment prospects, project management has now become the hottest " golden career " beyond MBA . Project management will undoubtedly be the hottest industry in the next twenty years. So what exactly is project management?
There are many definitions of project management. According to the textbook understanding, project management is to maximize the use of internal and external resources in terms of operating methods and management thinking patterns to achieve project goals. Project management includes many levels: team management, risk management, procurement management, process management, time management, cost management and quality management, etc.
The author's understanding is: Project management is to use all available resources through reasonable organization to complete a planned goal according to the planned cost and planned progress. During the project implementation process, the goals are likely to change, and the cost and schedule will need to be adjusted accordingly.
1. How does the project manager solve the problem?
According to the white cat and black cat theory, the only criterion for evaluating the success of project management is whether the project is completed on time with quality and quantity. Today's project implementation is generally based on the supervisor's responsibility system. The project supervisor has a heavy responsibility on his shoulders. It is not easy to achieve the goal of project success.
During the project management process, the author often thinks about the following questions: How to form an effective project team when there are not many choices?
The selection of project team members is very important. If an inappropriate candidate is placed in a key position, the project is likely to get off to a bad start. Of course, among the existing human resources, it may not be possible to successfully select outstanding talents and form a team capable of fighting. The author encountered this worst situation: only the supervisor in the project team has experience, and the other members are just graduated college students. Then the supervisor's task is not only management, but also requires a lot of time and energy to train these novices so that they can They can get into their intended role as quickly as possible. How to define the scope of project members' work and define the working interface between them?
This problem is what the saying goes, " distributing work ." It is not a simple matter to assign work. The project manager first needs to be very understanding and familiar with the project team members, and knows their knowledge structure and ability level; secondly, he must have a very clear understanding of the project situation, and be able to divide the project implementation process and refine the functional modules, and integrate each person Assign specific tasks according to the characteristics of the team; the last important thing to note is to try to make the work interface between team members as simple and detailed as possible to avoid mutual blame-shifting and wrangling in the future.
2. How to accurately measure the workload of project members?
Anyone who has ever been a supervisor has encountered this problem: the work assigned to A is required to be completed within a week, but a month has passed and he has not finished it; the work assigned to B is required to be completed within a week, but he has not finished it in one day. Done. In fact, in current project management, the measurement of workload often relies on the subjective judgment of the supervisor's experience, and this judgment does not vary from person to person. Subjective judgment will cause large errors, and the accumulation of these errors will eventually lead to an increase in uncontrollable factors and an expansion of project risks. How to communicate in a timely manner without disturbing the work of project team members?
Nowadays, it is rare to be able to complete a project alone. It often requires a team to complete, so the team spirit of cooperation is particularly important. In the eyes of ordinary people, technical staff are generally aloof and difficult to manage. Supervisors must not only master good communication skills, but also be good at emotional communication, help project team members solve practical difficulties in work and life, and enable them to concentrate on doing their jobs well. Good superior-subordinate and peer-to-peer relationships create a harmonious working atmosphere and greatly increase the likelihood of project success. How to evaluate the project implementation status and keep track of the project progress at any time?
During project operation, it is not enough to rely on employee reports to understand project progress. In fact, employees are willing to report good news but not bad news. Problems that appear in the early stages of the project will cause major mistakes in the subsequent stages if they are not passed on. The author believes that in addition to regularly listening to reports from project team members, there should also be a dedicated quality assurance team to supervise the implementation of the project. The Quality Assurance Team is just like the Independent Commission Against Corruption. It does not participate in the specific implementation of the project. It is dedicated to " finding faults " for others , or writing some test programs to find problems.
3. How to communicate and collaborate with customer units?
Sometimes, when a project has reached its final stage, the customer unit suddenly puts forward new requirements, which makes the supervisor very embarrassed. On the one hand, we must try our best to meet the needs of customers, and on the other hand, we must not make too many changes to the system that will affect the schedule. This situation is often caused by communication problems with customers, indicating that the work done during the demand stage was not good enough, and at the same time, there was no close contact with customers during the implementation process. How to complete project tasks on time under many uncertain factors and constraints?
Project success is affected by too many risk factors. The so-called " risk " is the uncertainty of loss; it is the difference between various results that may occur within a certain period of time under given circumstances. Its two basic characteristics are uncertainty and loss. Project development is a potentially lost activity, and regardless of how the development process proceeds, there is a chance that it will go over budget or be delayed. Few people can guarantee that development work will be successful, and everyone must take certain risks, which requires project risk analysis. When conducting a project risk analysis, it is important to quantify the degree of uncertainty and the degree of loss for each risk. Potential problems may have a negative impact on project plans, costs, technology, product quality, and team morale. Risk management is about identifying, handling, and eliminating potential problems before they cause damage to the project. How to complete project tasks while ensuring or even improving the quality of the delivery results?
My colleague once worked on a project and it was completed as planned and on budget, but the system was unstable and some key technical indicators could not meet national standards. The reasons for this situation are: there is no clear division of functional modules and interface relationships, members blame each other, and it is ultimately difficult to locate the source of instability; there is no quality assurance group, which fails to implement project process control well; too much emphasis on project time. Progress, small early problems were ignored or concealed.
4. How to become an excellent project manager?
The author believes that an excellent project manager is first of all an optimistic and confident person. He considers everything from a positive perspective, and does not regard failure as failure, but as the mother of success. He learns from experience and lessons, and gets up again wherever he falls. An excellent project manager does not necessarily have to be very experienced, but he must have a strong motivation and clear goals, and be able to communicate well with others and encourage others to work together for a common goal.