Leading Projects

Last updated on Jul 11, 2020 2 min read project management

Project

A project is “a temporary endeavor undertaken to create a unique product, service or result” ( Project Management Institute).

These notes contain tools that you can use to help ensure success for your projects and the people on your project teams.

Most projects are cross-functional. They include experts from different parts of the organization and sometimes people from outside the organization.

There should always be a Project Sponsor - the most senior person asking for the project to be done. Who is the person approving the budget, assigning people to the team and then pushing the team to deliver results?
Then, you have the Project Manager - the person who helps everyone on the team keep track of what they need to do and when they need to do it. Sometimes the Project Manager is the boss of the team, sometimes they’re more of a coach, and other times the Project Manager rarely appears to the other team members.
Next are the Functional Team Members (Subject Matter Experts or SME’s). There might be one functional team focused on Accounting and others focused on IT, HR, Operations and other functions. In some cases there might be a lot of people on a functional team and in other cases it may be only one or two. It really just depends on which people with which skills are needed to support the project.
Each functional team requires some management, though, so each of these teams should have a single person designated as the Functional Team Leader. The functional team leaders are often called Project Managers because they’re actually managing a small project within the bigger project.

In summary, a project is an initiative to create a change. It has a defined beginning and an end, and the main project roles include:

All of the people appointed to these roles need to work together to successfully complete a project!