Selection of the Project Manager

Selection of the project manager is one of the two or three most important decisions concerning the project. In this section, we wrote a few of the many skills the project manager (PM) should possess in order to have a reasonable chance of success.
The following is a list of some of the more popular attributes, skills, and qualities that have been used in the selection of project managers.
A strong technical background
A hard—nosed (精明而讲求实际的) manager
Someone who is currently available
A person who can keep the project team happy
One who has worked in several different departments
A person who can walk on (or part) the waters
These reasons are not so much wrong as they are “not right”. They miss the key criterion. Above all, the best PM is the one who can get the job done! As any senior manager knows, hard workers are easy to find. What is rare is the individual whose focus is on the completion of a difficult job. Of all the characteristics desirable in a PM, this drive to complete the task is the most important.
We can conclude that there are three major categories of skills that are required of the PM and serve as the key criteria for selection, given that the candidate has a powerful bias toward task completion. Also, it is not sufficient for the PM simply to possess these skills: they must also be perceived by others. The fact and the perception are equally important.
Credibility
The PM needs two kinds of credibility. First is technical credibility. The PM must be perceived by the client, senior executives, the functional departments, and the project team as possessing sufficient technical knowledge to direct the project. The PM does not have a high level of expertise (专门技术) , know more than any individual team members(or all of them), or be able to stand toe-to-toe and intellectually slug it out with experts in the various functional areas. Quite simply, the PM has to have a reasonable understanding of the base technologies on which the project rests, must be able to explain project technology to senior management, and must be able to interpret the technical needs and wants of the client (and senior management) to project team.
Second, the PM must be administratively (管理上地) credible. The PM has several key administrative responsibilities that must be performed with apparently effortless skill. One of these responsibilities is to the client and senior management to keep the project on schedule and within the cost and to make sure that project reports are accurate and timely. Another responsibility is to the project team-to make sure that material, equipment, and manpower are available when needed. Still another responsibility is to present the interests of all parties to the project (team,management, functional departments, and client) to one another. The PM is truly the “person in the middle.” Finally, the PM is responsible for making the tough trade-off decisions for the project, and must be perceived as a person who has he mature judgment and courage to do so consistently.
Sensitivity
The preceding pages contain many references to the PM‟s need for political sensitivity. There is no point in belaboring the issue further. In addition, to a good working set of political antennae, the PM needs to sense interpersonal conflict on the project team or between team members and outsiders. Successful PMs are not conflict avoiders. Quite the opposite, they sense conflict very early and confront it before it escalates into inter/intradepartmental warfare.
The PM must keep project members “cool”. This is not easy. As with any group of humans, rivalries, jealousies, friendships, and hostilities are sure to exist. The PM must persuade people to cooperate irrespective of personal feelings, to set aside personal likes and dislikes, and to focus on achieving project goals.
Finally, the PM needs a sensitive set of technical sensors. It is common, unfortunately, for otherwise competent(有能力的) and honest team members to try to hide their failures. Individuals who cannot work under stress would be well advised to avoid project organizations. In the pressure-cooker life of the project, failure is particularly threatening.Remember that we staffed the team with people who are task-oriented. We now have a condition where team members may not be able to tolerate their own failures (though they are rarely as intolerant of failure in others), and will hide failure rather than admit to it. The PM must be able to sense when things are being “swept under the rug” and are not progressing properly.
Leadership
Leadership has been defined as “interpersonal influence, exercised in situations and directed through the communication process, toward the attainment(目标， 目的) of a specified goal or goals”. But how is interpersonal influence generated? To all the skills and attributes we have mentioned, add enthusiasm, optimism, energy, tenacity(坚强), courage, and personal maturity. It is difficult to explain leadership. We tend to recognize it after the fact, rather than before. We define it anecdotally (轶事地， 非正式地) by saying that this person or that one acted like a leader. The PM must capitalize(利用) on people‟s strengths, cover their weaknesses, know when to take over and when to “give the team its head”, know when to punish and when to reward, know when to communicate and when to keep silent. Above all, the PM must know how to get others to share commitment(义务) to the project. In a word, the PM must be a leader.