CASE STUDIES

Case Study 4.1 In Search of Effective Project Managers

This case involves Pure swing Golf, and illustrates the problems when organizations attempt to locate competent project managers without any systematic plan for identifying and training good potential candidates. They are discovering that the voluntary approach, whereby new project managers are solicited seemingly at random from around the company, simply does not work. Many of these individuals likely do not have the skills or a reasonable understanding of what it takes to effectively manage projects. Questions: 1) Imagine you are a Human Resource professional at pure swing who has been assigned to develop a program for recruiting new project managers. Design a job description for the position. Based on the skills identified in this chapter, it would be possible to develop a job description that highlights several of the key features that strong project leaders possess. The job description must discuss the ability to manage a team, to possess strong time management and organizational skills, to have a sufficient technical background that the individual can understand the core technologies, the ability to work to deadlines, knowledge of cost accounting and finance, and so forth. The instructor can tease out this list for some time, adding additional descriptive skills needed to handle the job. The goal is to highlight the fact that effective project managers must possess a solid, well-rounded set of capabilities that enable them to almost function as miniCEOs within their organizations.

2) What qualities and personal characteristics support a higher likelihood of success as a project manager? The types of personality characteristics that are best associated with project management success include interpersonal skills, communication skills, technical competency, and so forth. As several tables in this chapter suggest, the skills and personality characteristics needed to succeed as a project manager are diverse and quite comprehensive.

3) What qualities and personal characteristics would make it difficult to be a successful project manager? In answering this question, the instructor can have student brainstorm some pathologies (within reason) that make certain people poor project managers. For example, a discussion could occur around the question of whether or not good project managers can delegate. Some would argue

against delegation, suggesting that project managers must be on top of everything. The counterargument can suggest that the purpose of superior team skills requires developing trust in others and the need to delegate. Other examples of qualities that work against becoming a good project manager could be the inability to shift from a big picture focus to being detail-oriented and vice versa. It has been suggested that good project managers cannot get bogged down in details nor can they remain above the fray, but require the ability to shift their focus constantly from the forest to the trees and back again.

Case Study 4.2 Finding the Emotional Intelligence to be a Real Leader

As the title suggests, this case is about the concept of emotional intelligence and its role in effective leadership. Kathy was a competent project manager who had been successful in the past, in other settings, but was failing badly in her first effort as head of a large, international project. Her inability to understand her teams sensibilities and her own domineering style are combining to create a highly negative team environment. The nature of emotional intelligence is identified by possessing: 1) self-awareness, 2) self-regulation, 3) motivation, 4) empathy, and 5) social skill. In this case, it appears that Kathy, though possessing strong motivation and, to some degree, self-regulation, is singularly lacking in empathy and social skills. Further, it could be argued that she is doing a poor job with self-awareness as well, as she does not understand how her own behaviors contributed to these problems. Questions:

1) Discuss how Kathy lacked sufficient emotional intelligence to be effective in her new project manager assignment. As noted above, of the five characteristics of emotional intelligence, Kathy appears to be seriously lacking the three of them self-awareness, empathy, and social skills. Her inability to appreciate and modify her behavior to work with people of different cultures is the key problem with her management style. Further, she is in error by assuming that the same management behaviors that worked well for her in another setting would transfer to this new project with a different workforce and cultural sensibilities. 2) Of the various dimensions of emotional intelligence, which dimension(s) did she appear to lack most? What evidence can you cite to support this contention? As above, students should quickly note that she lacks empathy and social skills. With a little prompting, they can also see how many of these problems also contribute to and affect her selfawareness. Being caught off-guard by problems in trying to manage a large project in a foreign country suggests a lack of self-awareness on Kathys part.