Title : Project Management Assignment 1

Faculty : Faculty of Chemical Engineering

Program : EH220
Course : CPE520: Project Management
Class : EH2204G
Lecturer : Dr Rusmi Alias

Group Members : 1) Mohamad Wishal Kurnia bin Azmy (2018437792)

2) Muhammad Shammil Ashman bin (2018441592)
Mohd Saupi
3) Mohamad Iqmal Hanif bin Mohamad (2018287548)
Afandi
4) Muhammad Aiman bin Rahman (2018227476)
5) Muhammad Syahmi bin Sumairi (2018299938)

Submission date : 29/03/2019

Total marks :
Question: If you are a Project Manager, what managerial skills you must
have in order to manage the project efficiently and effectively?

Organization is a social unit of people that is structured and managed to meet a need or
to pursue collective goals. . The prime target for an organization is to achieve the desired
mission and vision throughout the years of operation. However, the mission and vision for each
companies differ affected by its main production and customer. For instance, a program
manufacturing companies aims to provide a quality and profitable appliances which benefits
both the companies and the consumers. It differs completely with the vision and mission for an
oil and gas company which focused on extracting the highest purity of oil in fossil fuels for
local and international drivers consumption. Nevertheless, improvements need to be done by
all departments in order to create a positive image for the potential customers, hence boosting
the overall company performance and presents a positive improvements layout along the
milestone.
Project is an essential way to boost the company performance by producing better
solutions for any present problems occurred. A project is a temporary endeavor undertaken to
accomplish a unique product or service (PMI, 2010). In order to organize and manage the
project efficiently, the person-in-charge needs to understand the fundamentals in handling a
project. Project management is defined as the application of knowledge, skills, tools and
techniques to project activities in order to meet project requirements (PMI, 2010). Having a
complete overview on the project will eases the process and prevent any unexpected
possibilities in the near future.
A project manager is assigned for a specific project to meet the scope, time and cost
factors as required by the top management in an organization. A project manager is defined as
the person with authority to manage a project. The authority is given by the top management
of the organization according to his capabilities and skills in managing a project efficiently.
Selection of project manager is mainly based on his ability to manage the risk, people, quality,
schedule, scope and cost. For instance, a productive project manager is able to schedule the
complete project timeline considering the internal and external factors. Having to do so will
keep the project running in the required duration without neglecting the quality and quantity of
the output.
Communication is the most important soft skills to become a project manager. Many
project fails due to lack of communication. The assigned project manager will need to
communicate with all sectors and parties, thus demanding their cooperation throughout the
project duration. All parties such as senior management, client, project team and other
participants are responsible for the outcome of the project. Good communication skills will
lead them to express ideas, exchange information and thoughts, thus simplifying the problem
to be quicker and easier to be solved. For instance, a house construction project requires various
opinions of engineers with different fields. Different engineers have different views on the
design and lack of communication might lead the project duration to be extend or dismiss as a
result of miscalculation and misconduct in building the assigned house. Hence, communication
plays a vital role for project managers in ensuring a good and quality outcome while creating
a positive working environments for all participants.

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 Besides that, motivation is also part of the managerial skills that should include in order
to become a great project manager. Motivation is a good leadership quality to become a project
manager because motivation actually can change people mind on how they will work on a
certain project. A poorly motivated team has been known to unravel even the best project plan.
This show how important motivation skills in project manager as project manager needs to
know how to tackle the initial excitement when starting a project and use it to maintain
motivation that surely will lead to success throughout the project’s lifecycle (Liikamaa, 2015).
A project manager can motivate their project team members in a lot of ways. For example,
celebrate wins such that when your team reaches a project goal, as a great project manager we
should recognize their hard work by organizing a lunch or dinner, giving a trophy, letters of
appreciation or maybe mention their name at a meeting in the ways that recognition can be
achieved. As a result, all the project members are impressing about their project manager and
become motivated to work well throughout the project. We should never underestimate how
powerful a simple ‘thank you’ can be.
Negotiation skills for project managers are on the long list of soft skills that project
leaders should have. Negotiation is a method by which people settle differences. It is a process
by which compromise or agreement is reached while avoiding argument and dispute. The basic
principles for negotiation as the keys to a successful outcome are fairness, seeking mutual
benefit and maintaining a good relationship. Great negotiation skills are required in order to
determine the elements of a win-win outcome when negotiate. For a project that involve people,
negotiation tools provide ways for keeping projects on-course to ultimate success. To give an
example, when we are involved in the strategic negotiations with vendors about the goods and
services they have to offer for the project. Through skilled discussion, we will find a scenario
which is a good outcome for them and also a positive win for our company. Negotiating can
also be a useful strategy to deal with conflict on a project. While it’s almost impossible to avoid
conflict totally, being able to negotiate your way around it is a handy skill. Hence, by being
able to negotiate properly will surely open the door for more supportive stakeholders, better
relationships with our clients and a more positive working environment for our team members.
To become a good project manager, leadership skill is one of the skills that needed for
project manager. According to Susan Ward in her article ‘What Is Leadership? And Can You
Learn to Be a Good Leader?’, leadership is the art of motivating a group of people to act
towards achieving a common goal (Alan Guth, 2018). Every good project manager have this
soft skill. A project manager is the leader of the project. All decisions from the project manager.
Good decisions will make the project successful and vice versa. Put even more simply, the
leader which is the project manager is the inspiration and the director of the action. The terms
of leadership and management tend to be used interchangeably. Management refers to a
company’s management structure meanwhile for leadership is it individual who actually
managers are as the leader of various management. There are several type of leadership skills.
For example, the ability to delegate, inspire or communicate. Project manager need to act as a
leader when solve problems, making decision and others. Besides that, a good project manager
that has leadership skills need to flexible, sharing and innovative so as to bring out the project
success (Watson, 2017). If the project manager is not a good leader, it might affect the project.
Project manager also need to know how to win his or her worker in order to avoid any problems
such as riots from the workers. Lastly, one of the most important actions, things a leader can

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do, is to lead by example. If you want everyone else to be passionate, committed, dedicated
and motivated.
On the other hand, project manager must have good decision making. The definition of
decision making is the process of deciding about something important, especially in a group of
people or in an organization (RADHIKA, 2012). Before make a decision, a good project
manager will investigate the consequences when making the decision. Every decision is an
important move because when it is a wrong move, it will affect the entire project or worst the
project will fail. So every decision making need to be done in a proper way, the way that will
make the project become successful. There are few obstacles will be face by the project
manager. for example, how to make the project to complete earlier from the date and if the
project manager is not good in making decision, he or she will decided to speed up the process
without considering the safety, the quality or else. Every manager takes hundreds, thousand or
maybe more of decisions subconsciously or consciously making it as the key component in the
role of a manager (RADHIKA, 2012). Decisions play important roles as they determine both
organizational and managerial activities. Lastly, to be a good project manager, decision making
is one of the important soft skills that need to be mastered. Think 100 times before take any
decision, but once that decision is taken, stand by it as one man.
To sum up, a project manager is a key person to manage the project until it finishes
with the ability to manage the risk, people, quality, schedule, scope, and cost. There are several
characteristics that indicate a good project manager such as communication skills which one
of the aspects that can lead them to precise the idea and exchange data among the team member.
These individual skills help a lot to solve the problem quickly and create a positive working
environment. Besides that, team motivational skills are needed for a project manager to inspire
their teams to overcome obstacles and stay focused. A project manager should play this role
when there are unwanted events happen that caused a defect to the flow of the project. This is
good for the team to always positive in continuing the project together. In addition, a project
manager’s negotiation skills can have an impact on the perception of project success.
Negotiating can be a useful strategy to deal with conflict on a project. As a leader of a project,
leadership skill is one of the skills that needed to lead and manage teams, setting the vision,
motivating them, serving them, coaching them and inspiring others. Every project needs a
leader who supports the process, the team and the client to get the project done. Moreover, a
good decision-making project manager is needed because an important decision can have a
profound impact on the well beings and future prospects of the teams and the project itself.
Thus, a project manager is the one that has individual skills to manage the project from the
beginning until the project becomes successful.

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 References

PMI. (2010). Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK® Guide) 4th Ed. In
Intensive care medicine. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00134-010-1760-5
Liikamaa, K. (2015). Developing a Project Manager’s Competencies: A Collective View of the Most
Important Competencies. Procedia Manufacturing, 3(Ahfe), 681–687.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.promfg.2015.07.305
Alan Guth. (2018). Leadership Definition (What’s a Good Leader). Retrieved March 29, 2019, from
https://www.thebalancesmb.com/leadership-definition-2948275
Watson, J. (2017). Effective Decision Making | SkillsYouNeed. Retrieved March 29, 2019, from
https://www.skillsyouneed.com/ips/decision-making.html
RADHIKA, C. (2012). Importance of Leadership for Project Success. Retrieved March 29, 2019, from
https://project-management.com/importance-of-leadership-for-project-success/

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