Role of the Project Manager

A project manager is a person who has the overall responsibility for the successful initiation, planning, design, execution, monitoring, controlling and closure of a project. They are a facilitator of work, rather than a manager or supervisor of people. They have responsibilities to the company which employs them, the senior management of the company, to the clients and other team members in the project.

Figure 1: Project Budget

Responsibilities of a Project Manager

Overall, the responsibility of a project manager is to plan and implement projects. Some specific responsibilities include:

• Define project scope, goals and deliverables; this is a key part of a successful project

• Define tasks and required resources

• Acquiring adequate resources, including the right people, and allocating those resources

• Managing the people on the project team; this can be challenging because the project manager is likely not to be the person’s line manager

• Manage the project budget

• Create the project timeline

• Dealing with obstacles such as deviations from the project plan and timeline

• Monitor and report accurately on project progress to senior management and other stakeholders

• Manage the communication of a project so that there is a clear information network and all key communication goes through the project manager

• Implement and manage change when necessary to meet project outputs

• Evaluate and assess the result of the project

Figure 2: Communication, one of the skills required of Project Managers

Qualities of a Project Manager

Many project managers begin their careers in other areas and then move into project management. They tend to get on-the-job training for this role and then attend project management seminars or courses to get some technical skills. A large part of the learning curve for project managers will be through experience in an organisation, beginning with smaller projects and working their way up to larger projects. That way they also learn the culture of the organisation and build up the soft skills and technical skills (such as the skills outlined below). They also need a tough skin to deal with the stakeholders in a project and deal with obstacles and failures.

Some of the key skills required of a successful project manager are:

• Credibility: the stakeholders need to trust that the project manager can deliver. This credibility may be achieved through successfully delivering previous projects in an organisation, or successfully delivering various stages of the project

• Communication: a project manager spends most of the time communicating with other people at all levels of the company

• Ability to handle stress: this is a key attribute as projects tend to be unpredictable and the project manager will need to successfully deal with internal company politics, changing circumstances and pressure to meet goals

• Sensitivity: a project manager should be aware of the political structure of the company, be able to spot and manage potential conflict and be sensitive to the needs of the client and the team members

• Leadership: a project manager needs to be able to influence people and can show leadership by enthusiasm for the project, tenacity and keeping the project team focussed on the project goals

• Negotiation skills to create win-win situations whereby both parties believe they have gained from the negotiation

Figure 3: Bribery

Ethical Issues

Project managers may be faced with ethical issues. They may face pressure to cut corners to meet deadlines and budgets, which may compromise safety and standards. More seriously they may face pressure to win a contract through illegal means. There are many anti-bribery and anti-corruption laws in Ireland and globally and all companies should have anti-bribery policies in place.