A Comprehensive Insight into the Roles and Responsibilities of the Project Manager
If you could define the role of a project manager in a few words, it wouldn’t be wrong to say that this job is about streamlining and organizing chaos for a living. Their job is to bring structure, rationale, and urgency to workflow, expenses, and timelines.
Here’s a scenario. If you are the project manager of marketing a Spectrum Austin, you are responsible for defining each and everything about it. From speed and channel tiers to meeting the customer and vendor requirements to hiring the right staff, all of these will be your responsibilities as a project manager.
Let’s know about this promising job role.
A Foreword on Project Manager
The project manager or lead is supposed to assign the relevant task to the right talent and act as a quality controller. It is their job to keep everything according to the clients’ expectations. Project managers help organizations meet deadlines and deliver products within budget and on schedule. Their job even includes placating office politics whenever needed.
Demand and Future Prospects
Project managers are in-demand professionals who are quite well-paid. The role of a project manager is significant for businesses and companies of all sizes. That’s because if project managers are not managing the expenses they would lose millions of dollars, furthermore, complex projects would take forever to complete without them.?
Therefore, smart organizations rightly rely on project managers and are always on the outlook for competent candidates. This is especially true for big companies, which need planning, coordination, and completion of multiple projects in their pipeline.
To cut it short, project management has become more important than ever in this competitive era. According to an estimate, employers will need over 87.7 million people working in various project management roles by 2027. Therefore, it is clear that the job outlook and prospects for people with project management skills are promising.
Key Responsibilities of a Project Manager
If you are planning to pursue a role in project management, you need to a closer look at the responsibilities and duties of a project manager. In a nutshell, the project manager takes the overall responsibility for a project and is eventually accountable for its failure or success.
From inception to completion, a project goes through various developmental stages. And project managers have to perform some key tasks. Let’s discuss them.
Initiating the Project
After careful evaluation, project managers make an initial assessment according to the business requirements of the project in question. They are also responsible for all the engagement with stakeholders, management, and clients to clearly understand the project requirements.
At this step, they are supposed to identify the need for resources and assets to complete the project. They are also responsible for calculating costs, assessing risks. Determine dependencies, and give tentative deadlines.
Formulating a Comprehensive Project Plan
Creating the project plan is the next step in the project manager’s responsibilities. This strategic document specifies everything and enlightens everyone that they need to know about the project. This document sets the bar as well as the criteria to assess the success of the project. This assessment is based on things like cost, time, realization, benefits, and so on.
This project plan will indicate:
- Measures, which would be taken to minimize risks
- Assigning roles and tasks
- Developing relevant processes and policies
- Defining the activity plans and overall workflow
- Setting a budget
- Setting milestones and schedule
- Defining workflow
- Establishing objectives, project scope, quality benchmarks, and specifications
Communication
After formulating the plan, it’s time to implement it. It is the project manager’s responsibility to communicate policies, procedures, objectives, and parameters. This will set the right expectations for everyone involved in the project including the stakeholders.
Establishing the Workspace and Building Teams
Whether it is a global project to manage virtually or a local project to manage on-site, having the right teams and providing them with the necessary tools, platforms, and communication channels is significant. The project manager will handle all these tasks.
Furthermore, the project manager will supervise and procure any necessary systems, resources, or tools. Once the team is ready, the project manager is supposed to clarify their roles and tasks, promote collaboration, and establish communication protocols and channels.
Execution
Now that the project parameters are well-explained and every team member is on the same page, it’s time to execute the game plan!
While leaders take the lead, the project manager will ensure:
- Sticking to the project budget
- Keep a check on the execution steps
- Quality control
- Motivating team members
- Allocating resources while ensuring optimum cost-efficiency
Monitoring Progress
For effective monitoring as a P.M., there are so many tools to take advantage of. Some of them are Slack, Asana, Microsoft Project, Trello, and so on. By using them, project managers will get a top-level and comprehensive view of all aspects of the project.
Their responsibilities at this step are to mitigate risks, keep teams focused, resolve conflicts, reward excellence, and address red flags and roadblocks. They are also supposed to update all the stakeholders on the progress.
Closing the Project
Project managers should always learn more with every project to perform better in the next. So, when closing the project, they should congratulate the entire team. They should also conduct a comprehensive and honest review. And lastly, offer useful insight and proactive recommendations for the future.
