Building Bridges of Best Practices
In Project Management
....the most important factors that will ensure the success of the young professionals are knowledge and courage of correct exploitation of tools, techniques and skills.
Farzin Hosseini, an Ireland based engineer has been employing project management as an effective tool for seamless execution of the work that he undertakes.
Hosseini spoke with Global Development Digest, detailing best practices in his country and globally; areas where project management plays a key and critical role and advice to upcoming professionals in the field.
Global Development Digest: Please give an overview of your company and its sphere of work
Farzin Hosseini: I have been involved in managing infrastructure projects and programs for the past 10 years in civil engineering in Europe. I have seen good days and bad days in project management and the effect of a seamless planning and executions on projects.
I have seen the growth of the companies and their work capacities due to the demand.
As an entrepreneur, I have seen the gap of project management knowledge and how it affects the projects performance. Our goal is to assist the project managers to make the leap.
These managers certainly have the experience and with an appropriate guidance and direction the positive impact would be enormous. We promote high quality and standard project management and assist companies to achieve their potential growth.
Global Development Digest: What are some of the key areas where project management plays a role?
Farzin Hosseini: As organizations worldwide slash project funding to survive the credit crunch, project managers need to cultivate their professional adaptability.
This means project leaders need to meet the current set of constraints head-on. The specification and project scope is not final and is subject to immediate changes.
To fully understand the project process, the project managers shall get their hands dirty and carry out the nitty-gritty tasks that they typically assign to other team members. That hands-on approach could send project managers out into a world of opportunity.
Global Development Digest: Detail on some of the aspects of project management and engineering that translate into best practices
Farzin Hosseini: Project management and engineering have many in common however despite the perception of most engineers, they are not the same.
A high proficient engineer is not a necessary a successful project manager. Whilst they have many things in common such as well advance planning and detailed execution, their approaches are different.
An engineer has a desire to have a well and thought-through plan before commencing work on an assignment but that is not always the case!
However, a professional project manager will not commence execution until a plan with all possible foreseeable outcomes is detailed and set out. In my opinion, if engineers wait until all angels and outcomes are defined many inventions and innovation would not have been created.
On the other hand, if project managers commence execution without having a well defined plan, many projects would not have been successfully completed.
Global Development Digest: How does one make an engineering project at par with the best in the world using these practices?
Farzin Hosseini: There is a thin line difference between the perception of an engineers and project managers. If both skills are utilised appropriately, the projects can be managed very efficiently.
Usually the engineers are part of the project life cycle which is focused on the design phase. However, in the most engineering organisation the leader of the engineering design department will manage the project throughout its life cycle.
This is the more rudimentary of training, which is the sunk and swim. Whilst there are benefits of this method of training and learning such as firsthand experience, it requires more resources like time and cost to manage the project.
Global Development Digest: Share some nuances of project management that are practiced in Ireland and across the region
Farzin Hosseini: Ireland during past two decades was exposed to an economic boom. Budget was allocated to projects at initiation phase without a thorough analysis taking place.
Projects been selected without carrying out an appropriate project selection method being used.
However, the volume of the project brought a vast opportunity for project managers to work in several projects and programme simultaneously.
This has helped the companies to enhance their portfolios and feel the need for an efficient way to project manage. Delivering the projects with the defined scope is an important requirement that the clients are looking for.
In Ireland and UK, the project sponsor has major influence in the project; the budget is usually defined and allocated to the project in advance of the work.
The initiation and feasibility study of the projects is very important and the attempt is made to review the expectations of the stakeholders at this stage.
However, in Eastern Europe the project will go through many changes in execution as it is not well defined at initiation and planning stage. It will require more resources to define and manage the changes as it is occurring more into the rather advance stage of the project.
Global Development Digest: What suggestions and advice would you give upcoming and young professionals in the field?
Farzin Hosseini: There are plenty of opportunities for young professionals comparing to two decades ago when I graduated.
The available resources, coupled with online support, references and database are unlimited.
I think the most important factors that will ensure the success of the young professionals are knowledge and courage of correct exploitation of tools, techniques and skills.
Do not be afraid of changes and associated challenges; the worst that can happen to you is a taste of failure!
This experience is priceless, you cannot feel and appreciate the sense of the success until you have experienced the bitterness of the failure.
ABOUT Global Development Digest
Global Development Digest is a periopdic online publisher from DPM International, which seeks to give an insight into the latest in Project Management; Entrepreneurial Business Management; International Development Policies and other related issues.
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