Introduction
As an individual interested in and hoping to be among the top experts in project management, Mr. Bin and I met one day for an interview. Mr. Bin has worked as a project manager for more than a decade, and he has headed the regional board of project management for the last five years. In his field of work, he has worked in several different project types ranging from simple ones based on family projects to those which are complex/sophisticated of major public and private organizations. Although at the beginning of his professionalism, he worked in a bit general area of the profession, this habit of practice went on evolution and has changed with time, whereby he is presently categorized among the specialist in IT project managers. When I met with Mr. Bin for the first time, there was no doubt that I had met with someone purely mature with a sound mind and having a purity of thoughts. He instantly depicted such unique features of behavior character convincingly showing that he was a person with great visions and goals of his life and the society, a fact which I related to his IT nature of the job, together with his high ranking position of leadership in his professional field and industry.
Starting a project
The initial Bin’s knowledge, understanding, and view of projects appear to be a mystery. Although he had recognized that all type of organizations or industry types have their kind of projects, these projects were more or less the same showing only very minute disparities right from the point of conception in the mind up to the end of their full execution. According to him, he found that his understanding of project conception and project management had evolved with time depending on the nature of the project, and he owed most of the improvements to the influences of projects exposure, which have led to the ignition of new things based on project growth and development. Having undertaken the growth and development of diverse kinds of projects, he believes that his entry to the current field of professionalism is not because of its conducive working conditions or favorable environment it offered, but there were several reasons for choosing the field.
Within his thinking, an IT project manager doesn’t need to be the initiator of the project, however, any person can strike a project that will be beneficial to the organization and the society without considering the position held, the academic/ professional qualification of the field. The mention of IT as innovation was striking to me even though this was not meant to show IT projects developments are superior to others. To disqualify such kind of thinking, he stated that all project types have a general life cycle which makes project management to be an easy subject to understand, yet which can be complicated by other factors. In brief, he mentioned conception, development, evaluation, and finishing as the four core phases that all projects would go through including the development of IT projects. He knows very that even if certainly all the projects go through these stages, not all of them are soundly planned and executed. The proper execution of the IT projects demands the application of the three different knowledge areas of project growth and development. He thus told me that during the initial planning of an IT project, I should consider coming up with the aims of the projects which are precisely pre-determined by such factors as project scope, time, costs, and quality. On the emphasis of coming up with a successful project, he added that support factors like communications, human resources, procurement, and risk management are of paramount importance.
Skills and knowledge for hiring a project manager
The position of IT project manager is a rank that is charged with the performance and execution of many roles and responsibilities. The person holding this position is responsible for coordinating and regulating activities being undertaken by other individuals. Due to the many responsibilities and the sensitivity of tasks the IT project manager undertakes, Bin thinks that the position of IT project manager has a lot of skills and wide knowledge requirements. He expounded on this by elaborating the different core knowledge areas as well as facilitating knowledge sections stated in the above sub-title. He pointed out that academic gains are important in becoming or qualifying to be hired as an IT project manager, however, most organizations would prefer someone experienced and well equipped to deal with complex issues as they arise. The reality of the matter is, the individual should have a unique integration behavior character depicted by the results obtained through the integration of core project skills and facilitating knowledge skills (Schwalbe 56)
Spending on IT projects
Having been a project manager for more than a decade, Bin is concerned about the costs to be incurred in the growth and development of a project. He believes a well-implemented project is the one with higher benefits compared to its costs. He says that projects demand a lot of spending, sometimes beginning from the time of its conception to its finishing portion. At the present position of IT project manager, his thoughts are that spending is somewhat not continuous as there are some projects whose needed materials are already available. This view is however flawed if the focus is tuned on time, whereby the time factor is considered and coded monetary values. Because time factors may be quantified and be defined under money values, he takes IT projects to have continuous spending from this particular basis (Sommerville 145).
Generally, Mr. Bin shows that when developing the different IT projects, there is a great possibility of incurring different values of costs. This depends on the nature and circumstances encountered during the development of the project, which either dictates the costs of the required physical or non-physical tools and equipment to be used. Even though one has to incur costs, the IT manager held and emphasized the control of costs on the unseen/invisible costs especially those of time. He expands on this by stating that IT projects which take too long to their completion are quite detrimental to the organization/institution undertaking the projects. Furthermore, to stress on same issue/ factor, he said that this opens a loophole for the organization to experience a worse environment, and it is likely to contribute to a total loss of the project and the organization. On this particular matter of costs, it seems clear that he was pressing on precise estimates of costs both for physical and non-physical ones. (Pressman 276)
Risk management
Mr. Bin said the development of a risk management system was essential in the growth and development of IT software projects. He pointed out that several risks are surrounding the development of software and due to the high importance of ensuring completion of the project within the set time duration, the risks should be managed. He stressed that loss of data and crushing of supporting programs due to short and long problems of a power surge are some of the identified risks associated with most of the IT projects. While he defined several of the risks of software development projects, the description of viral programs that corrupt new programs being developed showed his clarity of understanding of the risks/threats to successfully coming up with new IT software projects. He explicitly talks about the caution on the program loss through the use of backup systems of data as well as utilization of power back-ups (Ghazy 46).
Conclusion
In conclusion, I believe that the interview conversation dwelled and revealed the most three significant parts involved in project management. As an IT manager project, the overall interview discussion showed him as someone who is well versed with key requirements of project management professionalism.
Works cited
Ghazy, Assassa. Software Engineering. Minneapolis: Course Technology, 2007. Print.
Pressman, Roger. Software Engineering. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2005. Print.
Schwalbe, Kathy. Information Technology Project Management. Boston: Course Technology, 2004. Print.
Sommerville, Ian. Software Engineering. Addison-Wesley, 2005. Print.