Being the leader of a project means being responsible for not only setting goals and completing them but also distributing roles and responsibilities among the people involved. However, a closer look at the specifics of roles and responsibilities distribution in a project will show that a project manager, in fact, can be replaced under specific circumstances (Heldman, 2013).
To facilitate continuity in the project management process and make sure that the new manager will align their actions with the initial objectives, the leader will have to make sure that the newly appointed project manager should receive the related information, be updated on the project management progress and identify the ways of attaining the goals set previously.
Since promoting continuity is the primary role of a project charter and the key task for a new project manager to complete, the primary items identified in PMBOK, such as the market demand, the business need, etc. (Heldman, 2013), are viewed as the primary requirements for a new project manager to meet. The manager, therefore, will have to analyze the project carefully with the help of the tools such as SWOT or PESTEL to find out about the assets and weaknesses of the subject matter and only then make decisions related to the project.
Additionally, the project charter presupposes that proper customer relationships, as well as relationships between the members involved should maintain positive. As a rule, the specified relationships are based on a set of rigid rules that determine the corporate structure, even though “the power of hierarchy is diminished in a knowledge work context” (Parker, 2015, p. 17).
A project manager is, therefore, obliged to identify the specifics of the project hierarchy and correlate the further actions with it as long as the structure in question allows for efficient project management.
It should also be born in mind that a project manager may face serious issues when convincing the members to comply with a specific behavioral pattern or a new principle for work organization. Traditionally, the specified phenomenon is identified as reluctance to change, which manifests itself in the members expressing unwillingness in using the suggested tools, working in the proposed mode or accepting the ideas that the project manager views as essential.
The specified phenomenon, however, should be viewed from the perspective of motivation and, thus, needs to be approached as a leadership issue; in other words, a change in the leadership style is desirable in the above-mentioned scenario. As a rule, the transformational leadership style is preferred as the method of spurring the project members’ productivity and galvanizing the project itself, as well as the production, thinking and decision-making processes (Söderlund, 2011).
For the purposes of continuity, the project manager must get themselves acquainted with the key charter elements and keep updated on the goals of the project that were set prior to the appointment of the person in question as the one in charge of the process.
Therefore, the role of the project manager in the abovementioned scenario boils down to making sure that the continuity of the process should be provided and that the person in charge should be capable of distributing roles and responsibilities among the key members adequately. As long as the actions of the manager and the stakeholders are aligned with the objectives of the project, a consistent success can be guaranteed.
Reference List
Heldman, K. (2013). PMP: Project management professional study guide. San Francisco, California; Alameda.
Parker, G. (2015). Integration decisions when outsourcing, offshoring, and distributing knowledge work. Web.
Söderlund, J. (2011). Pluralism in project management: Navigating the crossroads of specialization and fragmentation. International Journal of Management Reviews, 13(2), 153–176.