This series of modules is to educate the student about the Project Manager's role, workflow, activities and artifacts. Module 1 will give an overview of the IBM Rational Unified Process which introduces the management engineering practice using a unified process. Module 2 introduces the Project Management Discipline, which provides the framework whereby a project is created, managed and close out. Module 3 is an overview of Project Management Discipline's activities and artifacts. This discipline is carried out by the Project Manager. Module 4 introduces the Project Manager's Roles, Activities and Artifacts. Module 5 discusses the Project Manager's activities that are involved in the PM role. Module 6 discusses the Project Manager artifacts that the PM will be responsible for or to delegated to other project members.
Project Management is the art of balancing competing objectives, managing risk, and overcoming constraints to successfully deliver a product which meets the needs of both customers (the payers of bills) and the users. The fact that so few projects are unarguably successful is comment enough on the difficulty of the task. The Project Manager is the person responsible for the success of the Project Management Discipline. The modules will concentrate on the roles, activities, and artifacts of the Project Manager.
The most central concept in a unified process for a project is that of a role. A role defines the behavior and responsibilities of an individual, or a set of individuals working together as a team, within the context of an engineering organization. A role is an abstract definition of a set of activities performed and artifacts owned by the individual. These responsibilities are their activities and their artifacts. The artifacts are documents produced during the life-cycle of the project and given to the customer as a delivery. In this study the Project Managers role, activities and artifacts will be shown and examined in detail. Associated with each Role is the Workflow graphic of the individual. These are displayed in the Workflow graphic. Roles are typically realized by an individual, or a set of individuals, working together as a team. A project team member typically fulfills many different roles. While most roles are realized by people within the organization, people outside of the development organization play an important role: for example, that of the stakeholder of the project or product being developed.
The project manager role allocates resources, shapes priorities, coordinates interactions with customers and users, and generally keeps the project team focused on the right goal. The project manager also establishes a set of practices that ensure the integrity and quality of project artifacts.
The skills and experience needed to fulfill the Project Manager role will depend on the size, technical and management complexity of the project. To assume the Project Manager role for a unified process, the person must: