Introduction
In case if the efforts of project participants and the available resources are not skillfully managed and coordinated, a project will likely experience limitations that would prevent it from being successful. In the case of Global Green Books Publishing, the company did not meet the set deadlines due to quality issues that emerged after the company hired new workers who did not have the required skills in using binding and printing equipment. Thus, the larger and more complicated the project, the higher is the need to have a coordinator with appropriate competencies and qualifications that will allow for the management of the project. While project managers do not have formal authority over an organization’s workers, they are responsible for the overall success by managing the interactions between the relevant stakeholder groups, which requires a well-developed skill set and personality profile.
Competencies for a Project Manager: Global Green Books Publishing Case
To ensure that Global Green Books Publishing meets its client’s quality and timeline expectations, the knowledge, proven experience, and personality of the project manager should be on a high level. The knowledge competency is necessary because it is essential as it is concerned with such skills as leadership, team building, negotiation, communication, as well as other human resource management skills that would allow the manager to maintain a good connection to the team (Hartley, 2020). The management of Global Green Books has shown to be ineffective in managing team-related issues, which resulted in clients’ dissatisfaction and quality issues. A project manager with sufficient negotiation, communication, and human resource skills will be effective in identifying the limitations that prevent workers from being effective in completing the assigned responsibilities. Negotiation is necessary to facilitate teamwork efforts that would result in decreasing costs and time spent on fixing defects. The project manager will play the role of a negotiator or the ‘middle person’ that will help involved parties reach consensus. Through planning, discussing, proposing, and reviewing, the project manager is an integral player in ensuring that workers, organizational managers and leaders, and, importantly, clients clearly understand project as well as the relevant quality and timeline expectations.
In addition, the knowledge competence that a project manager should also encompass project time and project cost management, which is essential in the case of the company that has encountered significant issues associated with completing the project in time as well as assigning responsibilities. During project time management at Global Green Books Publishing, it is imperative that the manager identifies and schedules components that are necessary to reach in the result of the project (Ujwary-Gil & Potoczek, 2019). The manager should identify and define the types and quantities of resources and materials needed for completing deliverables while also identifying and estimating the timeline for completion. Overall, the project manager working to eliminate the current issues at the company will place great importance on schedule development ranging from the order of activities to schedule barriers necessary for creating a sequence of activities that should be done accordingly to reach the expected outcomes.
Proven experience encompasses such competencies as the manager’s track record in successfully completing projects, the scope and complexity of the projects managed, as well as the exposure to project planning and management. Working with Global Green Books Publishing, a project manager should have previous experience working with large projects that are time-restricted and imply high expectations of quality. Having publishing industry-specific knowledge is an advantage for a project manager, although not required as the key components of the project that guarantee success do not depend on the industry. The most important competence in the proven experience area is that the project manager should have successfully completed projects from which he or she can draw experiences and insights to increase the likelihood of success.
In the area of personality, there are two important categories to consider. The first category is concerned with having open-mindedness, confidence, adaptability, and enthusiasm. These qualities that the project manager at Global Green Books Publishing should have will allow him or her to be open to a variety of perspectives when working with the company’s employees. Through openness and adaptability, the project manager will be fair in his or her human resource decisions and express just actions intended to benefit the project outcomes overall. The second category in the personality area includes such competencies as the ability to communicate, the capacity to motivate others, the power of influence, as well as political sensitivity (Dobre, 2013). The last attribute is very important for the project manager because projects are multi-dimensional and highly dependent on politics within organizations. Political sensitivity in project managers allows addressing such components as the power structure of organizations, the impact of critical stakeholders on project completion, the levels of trust and agreement, as well as the relevant areas of focus.
The three categories of competencies that a project manager working with Global Green Books Publishing should have are all targeted at using the experiences and personal qualities of the specialist to help the company overcome the barriers to implementation. It is expected that the project manager would operate on different levels of the organization. On the one hand, there is a need to gain the trust and respect from such stakeholders as the company’s management and their clients in the publishing business in order to have a clear demonstration of the links between the business and project goals. On the other hand, the manager will work on attaining a level of respect on the part of Global Green Books’ employees in order to meet the short-term goals in alignment with the project’s long-term goals. Depending on the organizational culture at Global Green Books Publishing, the project manager will adjust his or her competencies to fit the expectations of Global Green Books Publishing. Based on the case study findings, the organizational culture is formal and more rigid compared to many modern companies, possibly due to the industry focus overall.
Conclusion
To conclude the case exploration, the competencies of a project manager necessary to bring success to Global Green Books Publishing are wide-encompassing and varied as they impact a range of different components. The project management environment is characterized by a change in responsibilities, the required knowledge, skills, and competencies will transform continuously. Because of this, flexibility and adaptability to the organizational context and the people working at the company are essential for a project manager working with the publishing company with industry-specific processes and expectations. Through encouraging collaborative effort and concise planning, the project manager is expected to help the company reach success in the project that has been encountering significant limitations.
References
Dobre, O-I. (2013). Employee motivation and organizational performance. Review of Applied Socio-Economic Research, 5(1), 53-60.
Hartley, S. (2020). Project management: A practical guide to planning and managing projects. Allen & Unwin.
Ujwary-Gil, A., & Potoczek, N. (2019). Organizations in the face of growing competition in the market. Institute of Economics Polish Academy of Science.