2.4 Key General Management Skills

General management is a broad subject dealing with every aspect of managing an ongoing enterprise. Among other topics, it includes:

   Finance and accounting, sales and marketing, research and development, manufacturing and distribution.

   Strategic planning, tactical planning, and operational planning.

   Organizational structures, organizational behavior, personnel administration, compensation, benefits, and career paths.

   Managing work relationships through motivation, delegation, supervision, team building, conflict management, and other techniques.

   Managing oneself through personal time management, stress management, and other techniques.

  General management skills provide much of the foundation for building project management skills. They are often essential for the project manager. On any given project, skill in any number of general management areas may be required. This section describes key general management skills that are highly likely to affect most projects and that are not covered elsewhere in this document. These skills are well documented in the general management literature and their application is fundamentally the same on a project.
  There are also many general management skills that are relevant only on certain projects or in certain application areas. For example, team member safety is critical on virtually all construction projects and of little concern on most software development projects.

2.4.1 Leading
Kotter (4) distinguishes between leading and managing while emphasizing the need for both: one without the other is likely to produce poor results. He says that managing is primarily concerned with "consistently producing key results expected by stakeholders", while leading involves:

   Establishing direction—developing both a vision of the future and strategies for producing the changes needed to achieve that vision.

   Aligning people—communicating the vision by words and deeds to all those whose cooperation may be needed to achieve the vision.

   Motivating and inspiring—helping people energize themselves to overcome political, bureaucratic, and resource barriers to change.

  On a project, particularly a larger project, the project manager is generally expected to be the project's leader as well. Leadership is not, however, limited to the project manager: it may be demonstrated by many different individuals at many different times during the project. Leadership must be demonstrated at all levels of the project (project leadership, technical leadership, team leadership).

2.4.2 Communicating
Communicating involves the exchange of information. The sender is responsible for making the information clear, unambiguous, and complete so that the receiver can receive it correctly. The receiver is responsible for making sure that the information is received in its entirety and understood correctly. Communicating has many dimensions:

   Written and oral, listening and speaking.

   Internal (within the project) and external (to the customer, the media, the public, etc.).

   Formal (reports, briefings, etc.) and informal (memos, ad hoc conversations, etc.).

   Vertical (up and down the organization) and horizontal (with peers and partner organization).

   The general management skill of communicating is related to, but not the same as, Project Communications Management (described in Chapter 10). Communicating is the broader subject and involves a substantial body of knowledge that is not unique to the project context, for example:

   Sender-receiver models—feedback loops, barriers to communications, etc.

   Choice of media—when to communicate in writing, when to communicate orally, when to write an informal memo, when to write a formal report, etc.

   Writing style—active vs. passive voice, sentence structure, word choice, etc.

   Presentation techniques—body language, design of visual aids, etc.

   Meeting management techniques—preparing an agenda, dealing with conflict, etc.

Project Communications Management is the application of these broad concepts to the specific needs of a project; for example, deciding how, when, in what form, and to whom to report project performance.

2.4.3 Negotiating
Negotiating involves conferring with others to come to terms with them or reach an agreement. Agreements may be negotiated directly or with assistance; mediation and arbitration are two types of assisted negotiation.
  Negotiations occur around many issues, at many times, and at many levels of the project. During the course of a typical project, project staff is likely to negotiate for any or all of the following:

   Scope, cost, and schedule objectives.

   Changes to scope, cost, or schedule.

   Contract terms and conditions.

   Assignments.

   Resources.

2.4.4 Problem Solving
Problem solving involves a combination of problem definition and decision-making.
  Problem definition requires distinguishing between causes and symptoms. Problems may be internal (a key employee is reassigned to another project) or external (a permit required to begin work is delayed). Problems may be technical (differences of opinion about the best way to design a product), managerial (a functional group is not producing according to plan), or interpersonal (personality or style clashes).
  Decision making, includes analyzing the problem to identify viable solutions, and then making a choice from among them. Decisions can be made or obtained (from the customer, from the team, or from a functional manager). Once made, decisions must be implemented. Decisions also have a time element to them—the "right" decision may not be the "best" decision if it is made too early or too late.

2.4.5 Influencing the Organization
Influencing the organization involves the ability to "get things done". It requires an understanding of both the formal and informal structures of all the organizations involved—the performing organization, the customer, partners,contractors, and numerous others as appropriate. Influencing the organization also requires an understanding of the mechanics of power and politics.
  Both power and politics are used here in their positive senses. Pfeffer (5) defines power as "the potential ability to influence behavior, to change the course of events, to overcome resistance, and to get people to do things that they would not otherwise do". In similar fashion, Eccles et al. (6) says that "politics is about getting collective action from a group of people who may have quite different interests. It is about being willing to use conflict and disorder creatively. The negative sense, of course, derives from the fact that attempts to reconcile these interests result in power struggles and organizational games that can sometimes take on a thoroughly unproductive life of their own".