Involvement Required By The Project Manager To Understand The Challenges Of Operations

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How much involvement is required by the Project manager to understand the challenges of Operations? It varies from project to project and from organization to organization. As per some experts,

  • It is not required unless these are inclusive in requirements outside PM role.
  • If they are internal PMs (i.e. not contractors), then there is benefit in some exposure to their operational stakeholders to be able to “walk a mile in their shoes”.
  • In project management technology it is called job shadowing technique. 
  • PM performance can be enhanced by rotating in various areas in a company because he/she will have more understanding and better communications with the project stakeholders.
  • Most of the companies comprises of different areas like design; operations; program management; IT; contracts; integration and test on site; and supply chain. This diversity is really helpful in improvement of performance as a PM in planning and executing assigned projects. 

The specific roles defined as PM and ‘Operations’ can vary widely from company to company. A PM must understand the needs of the stakeholders and customers of the project. The methods needed to attain ‘understanding’ will vary among individuals and environments – some will never get it.

As an IT PM, one of the key challenges people often face, is the difficulty of getting support (operations) to take on a project when it is complete, due to lack of information, lack of understanding, laziness, or some other reason. Only people who works in operations, can understand the sort of challenges they face, this means that they can more easily understand what they need to successfully take on a product. PMs who had worked in Operations are much more willing than most other PMs, to work closely with operations, and push both the PM and operations sides, to respect each other and accept that they can get by with less (operations), and that they need to provide more (PM), for successful transitions.

The project may want to invite other experts or advisors to join. It depends on the nature of the project, it might include subject matter experts, learning technology, IT, evaluation or key stakeholders. Think about what kind of insights, expertise, and advice you’d like and who could provide them. Generally a business analyst bridges the gap between project team and operations. But their role is limited and at times they just act as postman by passing the information between Operations and technical/project team. Where a project in a program decides to have business analysts, the project must manage it within its own resources. This way the project manager can understand the requirement from both technical as well as operational front. A business analyst cannot paint that picture which an internal team member can paint. While working with operations this resources can come across the challenges faced by them on a daily basis. But at the same time he is familiar of the technical challenges as well, so even if he is clear about the requirement of the operations he would never assume IT as a magical wound and so would never commit the requirements that are not feasible.

In addition to it if the project manager want to rise to a higher plane of technical and management capability, he has to invest some time in in-depth knowledge of the project and process improvement. This can be achieved only by involving with the operation and business more.

About Aditi Malhotra

Aditi Malhotra is the Content Marketing Manager at Whizlabs. Having a Master in Journalism and Mass Communication, she helps businesses stop playing around with Content Marketing and start seeing tangible ROI. A writer by day and a reader by night, she is a fine blend of both reality and fantasy. Apart from her professional commitments, she is also endearing to publish a book authored by her very soon.

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