Project Manager

Project management responsibilities include delivering every project on time within budget and scope and with them reguired specification. Project managers should have a background in business skills, management, budgeting, and analysis.

Project managers are skilled at getting the best out of the people and projects that they oversee. They thrive when planning projects and working with project teams.

Responsibilities:

• Coordinate internal resources and third parties/vendors for the flawless execution of projects
• Ensure that all projects are delivered on-time, within the scope and within budget and with the required specification.
• Developing project scopes and objectives, involving all relevant stakeholders and ensuring technical feasibility
• Ensure resource availability and allocation
• Develop a detailed project plan to track progress
• Use appropriate verification techniques to manage changes in project scope, schedule, and costs
• Measure project performance using appropriate systems, tools, and techniques
• Report and escalate to management as needed
• Manage the relationship with the client and all stakeholders
• Perform risk management to minimize project risks
• Establish and maintain relationships with third parties/vendors
• Create and maintain comprehensive project documentation

Planning Project Resources:

• A project can begin and certainly is designed to fail if there first wasn’t a plan devised to see it through, on time and within budget. The project manager’s first role is making a feasible plan that achieves the goals and objectives of the project and aligns with the organization’s overall business strategy. This is not only a blueprint with which to run the project but a critical part of the pitch to get approval for the project. Part of the plan is defining the project’s scope and determining what resources are available, estimating time and financial commitment, as well as how to monitor and report on the project’s progress.
  Assembling and Leading Project Team:
• Project managers need resources to complete the project tasks, which includes skilled and experienced workers. They need to either take a leadership role with an existing team or create one. Once a team is created, you assign them tasks and deadlines, give them the tools to collaborate and don’t get in their way by micromanaging every activity. Meet regularly, of course, and get status updates to chart their progress, while reallocated resources as needed to avoid blocking team members or overburdening them.
  Time Management:
• Time is always ticking towards the project deadline. While communications are key to addresses changes and make sure everyone is doing what they need to do when they need to do it, the project manager must also define, schedule and accurately estimate the task duration to develop and maintain a realistic schedule.
  Budget: Nothing is going to get done without money. Figuring out what the proper funding for the project is, having that get accepted and then keeping the project within or under that figure is often what makes or breaks a project. You can get your stakeholder their deliverables on time, but if that cost more than the budget you created, then the project is a failure. Making an accurate estimate is only the first part. Next, you must monitor the actual spend as compared to the planned budget. If those figures are off, you must adjust accordingly.
  Quality and Satisfaction:
• These are two major hurdles to clear. You want to deliver to your stakeholders what they expected or better and make sure that they’re satisfied with the results. But that doesn’t mean ignoring them to focus solely on the project. Rather, you need to be in constant communications with them, reporting on progress and being open to their feedback to keep them happy and coming back to you with future projects.
  Manage Issues and Risk: Problems will inevitably arise in a project. That’s called an issue. You need to be ready for them and work towards resolving them quickly, so as they don’t take your project off-track. Then there are risks, which are potential problems, ones that have yet to occur or might not ever. Regardless, you must figure out beforehand what the risks are and set in place a plan of action if they in fact occur.
  Monitoring Progress:
• To make sure a project is progressing as planned, you must constantly measure it and compare those metrics against the plan you created. Therefore, you must have a way to collect project data, such as status reports from your team, to see if the actual progress of the project is meeting what you had initially planned. Things are going to change along the way, and you’re going to have to adjust or reallocate resources to accommodate these changes. If you’re not monitoring this, you’re managing in the dark.
  Reporting and Documentation:
• Reporting is one of the ways you communicate with your team and stakeholders. While teams need more detailed information and stakeholders are looking for broader data to check the project’s progress, both are essential tasks for the project manager. This documentation, along with all paperwork, must be collected, signed off on and archived by the end of a project, which provides a history that you can revisit when planning for a similar project in the future.