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Project Manager

What do Project Managers do? #professional #management #graduate #japan #manager #project #institute #agile

Thank you comment icon Good project managers can be the difference between a successful project and a failed one. They need to have common sense, organizational skills, and people skills to be able to tackle complex projects. If you’ve just become a project manager, there are a number of things you can do to ensure a positive work environment and a successful outcome. Steven
Thank you comment icon Along with the pm skills what is also needed are soft skills. It is important to communicate clearly Katherine Tuttle

+25 Karma if successful
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Michael’s Answer

Jokingly, a project manager herds cats.

Seriously: A project Manager is really a jack-of-all trades type of operations role that understands schedules, budgeting, and works well with people and forms relationships. Successful Project Managers tend to be individuals who grasp technical and non-technical concepts well, and can link the concepts and communicate them out to the rest of a project team and stakeholders in clear terms that everyone understands. The actual administrative work is fairly routine, from updating schedules, assigning tasks, and ensuring project work is being done.

However, the role of a Project Manager is being migrated away from this administrative burden to the world of Agile where Project Managers are replaced with Scrum Masters and Agile Coaches who help project teams manage their works and find what works for those teams. Particularly in the technology space, there's an aversion to too much non-value added administrative tasks, so minimizing that is key, and frankly, makes a lot of business sense. A really good example of this is the Engineering Culture at Spotify (reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4GK1NDTWbkY) and how they fight to stay lean and experiment. They don't have a bunch of project managers, but rather a suite of Agile Coaches to help small teams develop small bits of the entire platform, coordinate across with the enterprise architects, and build a culture of experimentation and rapid failure and learning.

If you're interested in the operations side of projects, then Agile might also just feel more natural. Traditional Project Management (Waterfall) approach is great if you know exactly what it is you're building, but most projects are sort of exploratory as they go, with some loose requirements at the beginning and grow further as they move. Construction and things like Astro-engineering tend to need really great traditional project managers, as their requirements are fixed at the start of the project.
Thank you comment icon Loved reading this, thanks! Shaina
Thank you comment icon This is a really great explanation. Indeed these days Agile is the talk Dipankar Ghosh
Thank you comment icon Herding cats is spot on. Rebecca Brooks
Thank you comment icon Hi Michael - your advice is very insightful; awesome job. Thank you for sharing! Sheila Jordan
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Manuela’s Answer

A project manager is the person responsible for leading a project from its inception to execution. This includes planning, execution and managing the people, resources and scope of the project. Project managers must have the discipline to create clear and attainable objectives and to see them through to successful completion. The project manager has full responsibility and authority to complete the assigned project.


A project manager's position may end with the completion of the assigned project, or it may be a semipermanent position for a limited time or until a predetermined point in the project’s schedule or stage of completion.


There are many certifications offered in project management from a variety of organizations. These include Project Management Professional (PMP), Certified Associate in Project Management (CAPM) and Program Management Professional (PgMP).

Thank you comment icon I appreciate this, thank you for the advice. Shaina
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Christophe’s Answer

Hi there


Project management is



  • coordination of actions

  • organization and team definition ( finf the right people for each tasks)

  • drive the team ( set up meetings /calls - take notes during meeting - circulate notes

  • use templates for builind answer and share them with the team

  • use tools (software) for achieving the goal


All these tasks will help you to meet expectations and respect deadlines


Do not forget that one key point is to be able to ask people to perform tasks with no direct management line with You
Communication skills and influencing is also a big part of being successful


More information on this web site (i am using it a lot)
http://www.apmp.org/


Cheers

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Jayesh’s Answer

I think you got pretty good responses to your question. A related question, I would ask is - Who are Project Managers?


I recommend that you read the article at https://www.pmi.org/about/learn-about-pmi/who-are-project-managers.
Once you understand who they are, you will get more clarity on their responsibilities.


Hope this helps. Wish you all the best for your future endeavors.

Thank you comment icon Thank you, Jayesh! Shaina
Thank you comment icon Good suggestion, Jayesh. many times we look at the roles and responsibilities, but less we discuss behavioral characteristics about these professions that make them successful. Leion- check to see if you can relate to these characteristics to pursue PM career. PINKAL GANDHI
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Patricia’s Answer

Hi Leion!

I have been Project Manager IT for 11 years, so I can tell you some about her profile and what we do. I spend a lot of time in coordination sessions and make sure things happen, that's the mantra of a PM

A project manager is a person who has the overall responsibility for the successful initiation, planning, design, execution and monitoring.

The project manager must have a combination of skills including an ability to ask penetrating questions, detect unstated assumptions and resolve conflicts, as well as more general management skills.

A project manager is a person who is responsible for making decisions, both large and small. The project manager should make sure they control risk and minimise uncertainty. Every decision the project manager makes must directly benefit their project.

Some of our activities including:

Planning and Defining Scope
Resource Planning
Developing Schedules
Time Estimating
Cost Estimating
Developing a Budget
Documentation
Creating Charts, Schedules and Presentations to report the status of the project
Risk Analysis
Thank you comment icon Thank you, this is amazing! I really needed it. Shaina
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VANDANA’s Answer

project manager is to create & have the plan delivered along with the team . He is available for the team & to the management always
Project manager is the owner of delivery plan .
Create and Lead the team
Monitor Project Progress and share it with all the stakeholders
Manage Issues
Manages the Cost
Ensure Stakeholder Satisfaction
Evaluate Project Performance.
Ensures Team Motivations
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Blake’s Answer

Project managers coordinate the project to make sure that things are on track and completed on time. This can be a simpler role of checking in on everyone involved (which is not simple at all) or can be more of a technical resource as well, using industry knowledge, management skill, persuasion and planning insight to help make a project successful. Communication is key with being a project manager in my experience. If you love working with people and getting to see all aspects of a project it is a great area to be involved in.

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Dawn’s Answer

Project Managers are "change agents" who are organized, passionate and goal-oriented and who understand what projects have in common, and their strategic role in how organizations succeed, learn and change. Here is a helpful article from the Project Management Institute:
https://www.pmi.org/about/learn-about-pmi/who-are-project-managers

Best of luck in everything you do!
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Kristen’s Answer

A project manager sees a project through from beginning to end. The PM is responsible for scheduling meetings, following-up on deliverable, creating a project plan, managing the budget (if needed), draft and send communications, etc. A Project Manager should be organized, detail oriented, and results driven.
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Jim’s Answer

I was a project manager. Not for long but only for a few years. One thing that I would like to share is make sure your team member are align with the goal the team strive for. It is very challenging if the aim is not established and communicated properly.
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Shaun’s Answer

A project manager manages the following:
manage a project's scope (the purpose of the project)
manage a project's issues (problem that can impact the project)
manage a project' risks (events that affect the project in a positive or negative way)
manage a project's schedule (working with the people doing work on the project to get estimates to create a schedule)
manage the project's resources (the need's of the people working on the project)
manage the project's communication (the statuses and communications that are sent to the workers and people affected by the project)

These few items are some of the important items that a project manager is responsible and thus does this in the role as project manager.
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Sivaraman’s Answer

Find below the responsibilities of an IT manager:

Project management: Managing projects and solutions within a larger business initiative
Operational management: Maintaining essential IT infrastructure, such as hardware and software systems
People management: Creating job posts, interviewing and hiring candidates, managing the department budget, and coaching, counseling, and disciplining employees
Analytical skills: Analyzing current systems and assets, preparing cost-benefit analyses, and monitoring vendors
Research: Researching and implementing technological strategic solutions
Communication skills: Providing training and excellent verbal and writing skills
IT managers typically have a bachelor's degree in computer science, information science, or a related field, and relevant work experience. They may also have a graduate degree and certifications such as Microsoft Systems Administration or System Engineer.
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Tim’s Answer

Leion, a Project Manager is Ring Leader of the Circus, The Conductor of the Orchestra. Provides order to controlled chaos. It is where the magic happens. This person who has the ability and skills that are transferrable across all industries. Is able to manage each milestone effectively and can influence those who are responsible for executing on each milestone. A well planned project may take twice the time to implement but a poorly planned project takes three times longer than expected. Over the course of a project, the Project Manager will need to communicate with staff and clients, make decisions and monitor the progress of the project to keep it on schedule. Project Manager can effectively critically think. In the end, a Project Manager has to be flexible and able to pivot. Ask the right questions and research if this is the right area you are interested. Networking is another opportunity to learn more about Project Management via Linked In or mentorship programs.
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Scott’s Answer

Project managers manage a project from beginning to end. From understanding the scope of the project, to selecting the correct stakeholders to work with on the project, to tracking risk, action items, decisions, milestones, change requests etc, to ensuring the project has a budget and adhering to the budget, to working across multiple levels of management with in the company, and to truly owning the project end to end. If being detailed oriented and having a passion to complete tasks at hand with the ability to be flexible as the project scope and stakeholders could change the project management is a field you should explore.
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Julie Kreeger, Agile Coach’s Answer

Project Managers manage projects from the beginning to the end. They are looking at all areas (people, process and technology) as they manage a project. You will often hear folks use tools like Gantt Chart to manage milestone and dependencies.
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Niteesh’s Answer

A project manager is a professional in the field of project management.
Project managers have the responsibility of the planning, procurement and execution of a project, in any undertaking that has a defined scope, defined start and a defined finish; regardless of industry.
Project managers are first point of contact for any issues or discrepancies arising from within the heads of various departments in an organization before the problem escalates to higher authorities, as project representative.
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