Mintzberg Framework of Managerial Roles

Three important sub-roles that would apply to a Project Manager role.
-- Importance
-- Consequences of neglect



A skill set that is required for a given manager depends upon the level of operation, i.e. at what level he / she is operating in organization hierarchy, and hence what skills he / she should be having, i.e. technical, human or conceptual.

Each manager’s job involves various functions of management, i.e. planning, organizing, directing, and controlling. These functions are goal-directed, interrelated and interdependent. Planning involves devising a systematic process for attaining the goals of the organization, which in turn would prepare the organization for the future. Organizing involves arranging the necessary resources and infrastructure to carry out the plan. It is the process of creating structure, establishing relationships, and allocating resources to accomplish the goals of the organization. Directing involves providing guidance, leadership, and overseeing of employees to achieve organizational goals. Controlling involves verification of actual performance with respect to planned one, such that if actual results do not match the plan, corrective action could be taken.

Therefore, a manager’s role could be summarized as,
-- Planning
-- Organizing
-- Directing
-- Controlling

As evident from above diagram, importance of each role could not be diminished in comparison with others. Because, these roles / activities are complementary by nature rather than being supplementary to each other.

Now, if we look at Mintzberg’s framework in light of these activities, we shall find that those also highlight / emphasize on these attributes.

If a person’s role calls for accountability on account of all delivery aspects of a project, process improvement and resource management, and as a Delivery Manager, person’s responsibilities are more towards pre-sales, client interaction and presentation, resource management and project delivery. In this case if a person were to choose only three roles, then those would be,
1) Leader,
2) Monitor, and
3) Entrepreneur.

As person will be directly responsible for project’s execution and delivery; it would suicidal for him / her if he / she does not keep track or monitor the progress of project. One has to plan, organize, execute and monitor the progress at every stage / phase of the project. One has to compare analyze and take corrective actions on the basis of results drawn from that analysis. One has to disseminate the information to all support / affected groups / stake holders and maintain communication / contact on a continuous basis.

The reason being, if the link of communication is broken then it would have an adverse impact on the progress of the project. As in that scenario, in the absence of effective monitoring communication channel will break and the elements of project would not be in sync with others. This may also lead to further chaos, as either people might not be aware of their task(s) responsibilities or might be waiting for completion of parent activity.

But, if we have effective monitoring and tracking process in place, these hurdles are addressed effectively. As under those conditions, people / stakeholders will have access to the “information”, which is so critical to the success of the project. Therefore, monitoring is an essential and critical activity that a person’s role identifies / demands.

Now, a fair introspection at person’s end would reveal that, for the success of a project one needs to have right resources, i.e. who have requisite skills, have undergone needed training, and have fair amount of motivation to do the assigned task.

But the question is how will he / she identify their needs with respect to training, emotion, comfort, security, development etc., unless he / she interacts with them and try to understand their needs. The reason being if they do not have the comfortable feeling when they work with the person, they will not share their feelings, thoughts, ideas, problems, and solutions with him / her. Therefore, under those circumstances it is required of him / her to understand their needs and provide them the necessary support to satisfy those.

However, is it really sufficient to understand and satisfy the needs of people / resources, in order to achieve success in a project? I’d say no, because any demand without matching responsibility would create an imbalance, which would prove counter productive to the goal.

Therefore, one needs to define their responsibilities, provide guidance in achieving the set objectives, provide communication with respect to responsibility, business, growth, development and all other aspects, which have influence on the working ability, capability and willingness. How, much of each (or some) should be a part for a given person, depends on the person, hence cannot be generalized.

Moreover, it is a fact that in a crisis situation or hour of need, people seek for help to those, who are in a position to help. That is, who could guide them and provide the needed help to bail out of that crisis / situation.

Now, imagine a scenario, where he / she fails to understand all of these attributes, and fail to take any action on those; will his / her resources be satisfied, will they be able to complete the work, will that be of desirable / expected quality, will that be under committed time, will relations with that resource be without any strain, will the resources be willing to work with me on next project, will he / she not bad mouth about him / her? All these and many more questions would need to be answered to fully understand the implications of the same.

Therefore, it is imperative on his / her part to provide them all these attributes and keep improving on these so that they also improve their expectation from themselves.

Last but not the least, entrepreneurship. If we look at the responsibilities defined by this role, those could be summarized as,
1) Initiate improvement projects,
2) Identify new ideas, and
3) Delegate.

These responsibilities / activities make sense as the environment under which we operate, is under continuous change. And, there are two ways to adapt to these changes, first, we initiate the change and then adopt / institutionalize the same. Second, we react to the change, i.e. we change ourselves to adapt to changed environment.

The first one is more dependent on the pro-active part of an individual and he / she has the option either to start it or wait for it. However, in second case, he / she does not have a choice, one has to adapt to changing environment, otherwise the environmental forces would make the person / process / context element obsolete.

Similarly, in a software field, if one does not de-skill and re-skill, improve upon existing process and technology, improve upon existing norms, one would find himself / herself in a position, where either he / she should either quit the field or adapt oneself to changed environment.

As mentioned earlier, either we can initiate or adapt, however, in both cases we have to change to survive.

Now, coming back to person’s roles and responsibilities, if he / she have to make a choice, he / she would definitely choose the first option. The reason being cost of adaptation is more than initiating a change. Again, the same can be understood from a set of questions, i.e. what if I do not improve upon existing technology / processes / norms, will the market be same, i.e. with respect to demand, supply, competition, technology, environment, and so on. If the answer to any of these questions is NO (and threatening for the first one), it suggests that one cannot escape the change.

But can one do all the related activities by himself / herself? Am I self sufficient to carry out those activities? May be not, but if I am self-reliant to carry out those activities, probably yes. This probability of “yes” makes the difference. Therefore, one has to constantly think about reducing defects, improve productivity, reduce human intervention, raise the norms, enhancing customer satisfaction, reducing span and so on.

The reason behind this “change” could be the fear of survival; however, it brings out the best out of each involved in this activity.

As evident and explained, all activities required for planning, organizing, directing and controlling are necessary, and one cannot choose one at the expense of another, however, the degree of criticality changes along with the role, as has been explained above with respect to a person’s role.