In business, whether you are managing finances or launching a new product or service, managing a project is unavoidable. Many people today are confused as to what a project and as a project manager, I have been asked many times what I do. I will try to answer these questions by introducing you to the world of project managers.
Trevor L. Young in his book titled “How to be a Better Project Manager” defined project management as the dynamic process, conducted within a defined set of constraints, that utilizes the appropriate resources of the organization in a controlled and structured manner to achieve some clearly defined objectives identified as strategic needs.
As a project manager, you have a task or set goal(s) to achieve. This task can be further broken down to several units, needing different resources and being handled by the different people possibly specialized in a task. A task can simply be referred to as a project. When you do the job of coordinating resources and work personnel into achieving set tasks, you are the task manager, better referred to as the project manager.
Who is a Project Manager?
Wikipedia defined the role of a project manager as the following :
1. a professional in the field of project management
2. having the responsibility of the planning, execution and closing of any project
3. a person responsible for accomplishing the stated project objectives
4. often a client representative and has to determine and implement the exact needs of the client, based on knowledge of the firm they are representing
5. bridging the gap between the production team and client, so he must have a fair knowledge of the industry he is in so that he is capable of understanding and discussing the problems with either party
Project Management Institute (PMI), which is one of the world’s largest not-for-profit membership associations for the project management profession, defined who project managers are as:
1. People who are organized, passionate and goal-oriented. Project managers understand what projects have in common, and their strategic role in how organizations succeed, learn and change
2. Project managers are change agents. They make project goals their own and use their skills and expertise to inspire a sense of shared purpose within the project team. They enjoy the organized adrenaline of new challenges and the responsibility of driving business results.
3. Project Managers work well under pressure and are comfortable with change and complexity in dynamic environments. They can shift readily between the “big picture” and the small-but-crucial details, knowing when to concentrate on each.
4. Project managers cultivate the people skills needed to develop trust and communication among all of a project’s stakeholders: its sponsors, those who will make use of the project’s results, those who command the resources needed, and the project team members.
5. Project Managers have a broad and flexible toolkit of techniques, resolving complex, interdependent activities into tasks and sub-tasks that are documented, monitored and controlled. They adapt their approach to the context and constraints of each project, knowing that no “one size” can fit all the variety of projects. And they are always improving their own and their teams’ skills through lessons-learned reviews at project completion.
Webopedia defines a project manager as an individual who is responsible for the planning, organization, resource management, and discipline pertaining to the successful completion of a specific project or objective. This position may refer to a temporary endeavor containing an end coinciding with the end of the assigned project, but can also be a semi- permanent or permanent position.
There are various definitions to the role of a project manager and no one definition fits all. The project manager is expected to be the master of all processes on every project. The project manager is key to the success of every project as he is expected to be able to see the big picture more than all other resources working on the project. The project manager talks and takes decision from the big picture and his job is not to allow individual work roles hinder or disrupt the joint roles in achieving the project.
In the next article, we’ll look at how to manage the constraints of the project management triangle.
[Source credits: Wikipedia | Project Management Institute | Webopedia]
