What is a Project Manager?

The chief skills of a Project Manager are leadership, management, organisation, team-building and communication.

Leadership

In order to be successful, a project manager must have both leadership and management skills. Leadership involves communicating the objectives and vision of the project to team members and stakeholders; displaying courage and confidence; inspiring the team; taking charge and leading with energy and by example; and promoting creativity, coordination and teamwork in order to reach the project’s goals. Management involves administration: the disciplined, methodical application of project management processes in planning and controlling a project.

Organisation and team-building

Organisational planning and human resource management are key skills for a project manager, since assembling a project team and providing the environments in which they will coordinate their activities are often project management responsibilities. A project manager usually negotiates with other levels of management which people will participate on a project. The team of people who will participate must have the skills to perform the work in addition to sufficient time and appropriate tools and materials. Once a team is assembled, the project manager will assign project roles, responsibilities and reporting relationships. Depending on project length, the project manager may also plan team development, training or team-building activities in order to achieve effective project performance.

Communication

A key skill for a project manager is the ability to communicate well. Project coordination is key to project success in that stakeholders have a need to understand project activities and outcomes from their point of view, and often provide input to project decisions as well. Depending on the nature of the industry, project managers may have to coordinate teams and stakeholders who speak different languages or are located at great distances. Communications planning includes identifying appropriate communication methods for various stakeholders, which could include face to face meetings, telephone or video conferences, e-mail, instant messaging and formal or informal reporting. Project managers also identify which meetings should take place at various levels of the project, including management and technical meetings. The methods of communication for coordination of project activities, and the reporting requirements of stakeholders are also planned. While a project is in progress the project manager is responsible for distributing information and reporting on progress and performance, in addition to the coordination of project team members and resources.

Responsibilities

A Project Manager’s responsibilities are the management of a project’s scope, schedule, budget, quality and risk.

Scope management

Scope management involves planning, defining, verifying and controlling the features of the product or service created during the project. For example, on a construction project, the scope includes the components of the building to be constructed. On an information technology project, the scope includes the features of the hardware component or software which the project is building. Often during a project there is pressure to increase or change the functions. The project manager is responsible for ensuring that a scope baseline has been set, and for controlling change in an orderly manner by obtaining proper authorization and approval for changes in scope.

Schedule planning

Projects are often constrained by time and a project manager’s responsibilities include schedule management. Tasks in this area include planning for a project by defining the activities and their dependencies and sequence during the project as well as estimating their duration. If a project has a stakeholder-required completion date, but the estimate shows that the activities will run beyond this date, then the project manager will have to negotiate with the stakeholder either to extend the required completion date or to reduce the project’s features and responsibilities. Project managers are normally responsible for setting a project baseline schedule which stakeholders assist in creating and to which all agree. While the project is operating, the project manager must control the schedule by reviewing progress and taking action to ensure that project milestones are met. In order to meet the project schedule, project issues must be tracked and managed to resolution. Such tracking involves understanding the relative importance of project issues and how they will affect the project schedule; understanding who is able to resolve each issue and understanding the way in which issues are escalated during a project.

Budget management

The project budget is another constraint to which the project manager is often held accountable. In the planning stages of a project, the cost of project resources must be estimated, including the cost of labour for project team members, equipment needed to perform the project and the materials needed to construct the product. Again, the project manager must ensure that a baseline budget is set for the project, and that changes are approved and communicated. During project execution, spending is measured by tracking the budget used to date and taking action to control costs and keep them within approved levels.

Quality planning

A factor which must be considered by project managers is the quality of the resulting product or service. Quality planning involves determining which standards are relevant to the project and determining how they should be satisfied. While a project is in progress, quality assurance involves evaluating overall performance of the project at defined intervals to provide confidence that the project will meet the needed standards. Quality control, by contrast, measures individual project results to determine if they comply with specific quality standards, and identifying ways to improve quality. The project manager must be aware of the quality required by the stakeholders, and negotiate appropriate budget and schedule to be included in order to achieve quality.

Risk management

Risk management is a further responsibility for project managers. Risks are events which may occur during a project which, should they occur, will adversely affect the project. The project manager is often responsible for identifying project risks and quantifying the potential likelihood and outcome in order to select risks events that warrant a planned response. Risk mitigation involves planning responses to risks events. Risk control involves responding to risks events which occur. For example, in an industry where there is a great deal of competition for skilled staff, there could be a risk that a key project team member will leave before the project is complete. Risk mitigation involves planning for such an eventuality by identifying activities that would take place if the event occurred.