Project Management

The Role of the Project Manager 33

tional organization—and in many cases, a matrix organization—
you should not expect to be granted very much formal authori-
ty. The gap between responsibility and authority will be quite
wide. To compensate for your perceived lack of formal authori-
ty, you’ll have to rely upon expert power (respect you can gar-
ner through superior knowledge or capability) or referent power
(often accessed by practicing an excellent leadership style).
You’ll also need to rely heavily upon your ability to influence
and persuade.

Imposition of Unrealistic Targets

Sound project management practice suggests that project goals
(cost, schedule, quality, and functionality) should be determined
through a systematic process of understanding customer needs,
identifying the best solution, and formal planning. Throughout
this process, realistic assumptions about resource availability,
quality of materials, and work process (just to name a few fac-
tors) should be used. This approach yields a credible estimation
of what is reasonably achievable. If this estimation does not meet
business goals, then a systematic risk-vs.-return process should
be pursued until it can be verified whether or not the targets can
be met within a given level of elevated risk. That’s the process
that should be followed.
Unfortunately, we live
in a real world. Targets are
far too often based on
desire or a vague sense of
what should be achievable,
rather than driven by cal-
culated business needs. In
even more unfortunate cir-
cumstances, targets are
developed before it’s even
known what the project
entails! In either case, the
result is that impatience—
rather than a rational

Reverse

Scheduling

If you’ve been assigned

to a project with an imposed end date,

avoid the temptation to develop your

schedule by starting with the finish

date and working your way backward

to the current date.This will create a

false sense of what is achievable and

mask the true level of risk involved in

meeting that date. Refer to Chapter 8,

Dealing with Risk and Uncertainty for

more on this topic.