An Introduction To The Role Of Project Manager

If you're new to the role of project manager, it can seem like a daunting task to pull so many elements together on time, on budget, and meeting all the goals set out at the start. It really isn't that difficult if, like most things in business, you break it down and address each component in turn. Most of us (in a role prior to project manager) have skills in people management, time management, budget control, and creating milestones and key performance indicators - it's just a matter of bringing all these skills to the table. Here are the four main themes of project management that will encompass the role, usually in this order:

1. Putting the team together

The appointment of project manager (that's you, hopefully) will usually be the first full-time person allocated to the project, since it's the manager's role to pull the rest of the team together. There may be suggestions in place already as to who should be working with you - perhaps because of their area of expertise or their previous role in a similar project. One of the more skilled elements of staffing a project team is knowing what skills work well together, and therefore which people are more suited to working with each other. This is an important point often overlooked - you can't throw people together and presume everything will work out on its own - team building is essential and the more you can facilitate it as a project manager, the better.

2. Scope planning and creating milestones

The overall aim of the project should already be clear before the previous stage, as you'll have been staffing your team according to their skills needed to achieve the project's final goal. It's the milestones and goals in between that the project manager has to set. These should be often enough to give the team good time management and a sense of achievement and morale, but not so numerous that they feel that there's too much to do in too little time, or that they are being watched Big Brother, micro management style. This is a fine balance, and a skilled project manager can assess the project goals accordingly for his or her team.

3. Time management and budget control

Each individual team member should have their own time-management skills (if you think they could use a brush up on such skills, as project manager remember you also have the option to book them on a course). Your time management role, besides managing your own workload effectively is to monitor the course of the project so that you can keep it on track and to deadline. This is quite closely related to budget control since the longer the project goes over deadline, the more it's going to cost over the budget unless you've been particularly stringent and made cuts. A good project manager has a hands-on approach so that they can see any bumps in the road early and steer the project back on course before any damage is done.

4. Wrapping up and post-project

Even after the goals have been met and the project is essentially over, and the staff have gone to work on their next job or role, the project manager is always the last one remaining for the 'wrap'. This could include presenting the project results to your superiors, or giving feedback to individual team members to deconstruct how well things went and what could be done better next time.

This should give you some idea as to the role of Project Manager. Most professionals already have all the skills required, but if you can combine them all effectively in one package, then you're on your way to becoming a great project manager.