Project management is a difficult but interesting job. It is handled by none other than a project manager. People in this profession are usually sociable and proactive, manage large and small projects, and are responsible for the work of their teams. How do they do it?
In this article, we will tell you who a project manager is, what his responsibilities are, and list the skills that a future project management specialist will need.
Who Is a Project Manager
A project manager is a specialist who is responsible for the execution and realization of a project. Since a project manager leads an entire team, he or she has many responsibilities.
What a project manager does:
- Selects and builds the project team
- Assigns and monitors tasks
- Maintains project documentation
- Prepares a work plan
- Communicates with customers and contractors
- Supports the team
- And presents the finished project to the management and customers
- Keeping the Brand guidelines, define how the brand and business logo design should be presented across all touchpoints.
A good Project Manager knows how to interact with everyone, and the ideal Project Manager harmoniously integrates everyone into one system. This is helped by knowledge of foreign languages, studying and applying various ways of communicating and influencing people, and using special tools for project management, such as interest and responsibility matrices.
It is common to compare the Project Manager role with the tasks of Product Owners and Product Managers. Although they can collaborate seamlessly, it’s important to know the three differ in many responsibilities.
6 Skills of Highly Professional Project Managers
- Task and Process Management
Any project is a complex of work tasks and processes, and the Project Manager has to put everything into one system: from resource allocation to task control and results evaluation.
A manager needs to know in theory and use in practice:
- Project management methodologies, among the mandatory ones, are Agile, Waterfall, and hybrid approaches
- Methodologies and techniques such as Scrum and Kanban
- Document management basics
- Tools to simplify the PM’s work: collaboration platforms, task managers, document repositories, email and chat services, personal note-taking tools, creative boards, and design software
To the above you should definitely add planning skills: it is hard to imagine an ideal project manager without them.
- Time Management and the Ability to Focus on What Is Important
Proper planning and time control increases the efficiency of PMs and the team as a whole. It should be taken into account that in the realities of IT projects, tasks and goals often change under the influence of various factors, which means that a manager must be able to make quick decisions and adjustments to the original plan.
To optimize the planning process, you can develop a system of scheduled meetings and division of tasks into groups, taking into account the specifics of a particular project and the personal characteristics of the PM. For example, if you and your client have a big time difference, you will probably have to shift your usual work schedule and schedule meetings for lunch or even in the evening.
The skill of focusing on what’s important helps you allocate your own time effectively and prioritize tasks efficiently, as well as identify:
- The main factors for the project
- The level of impact of tasks on the project: which ones are important and which ones can be removed from the plan
- The practical usefulness of certain tools and approaches
- The problems that the team regularly faces
You can use time trackers and special methods to help you stay focused during working hours.
- Team Management
Without a well-coordinated team of specialists, each of whom performs its task in accordance with the overall strategy, the success of any project is in doubt. That is why it is important for PMs to select people correctly, and to distribute roles between them, taking into account their professional skills, personalities, and communicative features.
Product roadmapping tools can help PMs effectively coordinate team members and ensure all work is aligned to the overall product strategy and roadmap. For effective teamwork, managers must competently motivate, guide, and control the work of specialists. A manager will be greatly assisted in this:
- Knowledge of the principles of team building: the life cycle of a team, what roles there are, how to select specialists and integrate them into the existing business system of the company.
- Well-developed empathy and leadership skills.
- Oratorical and theatrical skills.
- Knowledge of the psychology of building relationships between people.
- Competent use of team building tools such as team building and one-on-one meetings.
The role of a PM on any project is one of the key ones, and it is his/her actions that determine the effectiveness of the team’s work and the result of the whole project
- Skill to Make a Decision and Take Responsibility
A Project Manager is a manager and leader who not only distributes tasks and supervises their fulfillment, she/he is also responsible for the result and the project as a whole. Whichever software you use to manage projects or PM methodology you choose – cascade, agile, or hybrid – in case of failure, the main culprit will be the manager, because she/he was not able to properly plan, organize, and control the work of the team.
You can delegate some of your responsibilities and even practice collegial decision-making, but in key issues, you should have the last word. This is especially true for critical moments like a team member leaving in the middle of a project, when the question is whether to persuade the person to further cooperate or to part ways.
An ideal PM when making decisions:
- Is guided by his/her own experience and expert opinion.
- Takes into account the business interests of the company and the client.
- Takes into account professional and personal relationships within the team.
Some managers also advise listening to their intuition – it can suggest extraordinary ways out of even the most difficult situations. But this rule only works if the manager has a lot of experience in project management.
- Conflict Resolution Skills
It is extremely rare that everything goes according to plan on a project and everyone is happy. Usually, it is the other way around: a technician misunderstands a task or a manager sets it incorrectly, a client comes in with changes and makes adjustments, and stakeholders do not want to get in touch. Against this background, a conflict situation can easily arise, which the Project Manager should be able to solve in time, and ideally – to prevent.
Escalations often occur for three reasons:
- Poor communication with people
- Poor work processes
- Personal differences
If these factors are worked through, the number of conflicts will be significantly reduced. In cases of PM escalation, it is important to analyze the situation, find the cause, and only then act. At such times, much depends on how well the manager’s decision-making skills and emotional intelligence are pumped up.
- Risk and Change Management Skills
Since the PM is responsible for the entire project, he or she must consider various influencing factors and calculate risks. There are different response strategies for finding, analyzing, and preventing potential problems, but there are four main ones:
Each strategy can be used separately or in combination with the others. In this case, the choice is based on a special matrix, which is based on the assessment of risks by two criteria: the probability of occurrence of the problem in a particular period of time and the level of potential damage from the realization of the risk. Then the data are ranked on a scale from 1 to 10, after which a response strategy is selected.
To Sum Up, all the skills of an ideal project manager are interrelated. In order to become a high-level PM, it is not enough to have only strong soft skills, you also need to tighten up your technical and business skills. It is also important to develop the desire and aspiration to learn something new and not to be afraid to put it into practice. However, this applies to all IT specialties, not just managerial ones.