What Is A Project Manager?

In modern business, project management has always been an important part of its premises. The project management position demands have been increasing from year to year. There are different roles and assignments assigned to the employees who are working in the project management division. Here is the insight of the project manager and the cues in your project management career.

Project managers might have a wide array of tasks depending on the particular components assigned by the employers. But in common, project managers are responsible for planning, monitoring, executing, controlling, as well as finalizing particular projects. They are responsible to manage the entire project and its team to bring up the successful result of the project.
If you are figuring out about the project manager roles and whether it is a great choice for you, you could see the points below to proceed.

What are the role and responsibilities of a project manager?

As mentioned, project managers’ main responsibility is linked with the project management tasks including planning, organizing, and managing particular projects to bring the best outcome.

Project managers have such pivotal keys to direct where the business project will go. That includes the directions, the costs, valuations, business’ productivity, as well as overall revenue of a company.

It is highly possible that a company can employ more than one project manager depending on the types and nature of the project. Each organization even has the right to run more than one project and employ a group of project managers to divide the burden of the tasks.
However, these project managers will get involved with a set of tasks called the “project life cycle”.

The project life cycle consists of various phases depending on the type of the project. But commonly, a single cycle could revolve around Instigating, Planning/Brainstorming, Executing, Maintaining, Supervising, Closing. The processes can be dynamic from one project to another.

Initiation

In the initiating, for instance, the project managers will find out the main goals of the project, milestones, as well as missions. A serious project can involve a lot of parties including the stakeholders, investors, authorities, and other parties. It can also be the responsibility of the project manager to meet up with them and discuss it to reach the possible expectations and goals. Sometimes, this initiation phase does not involve the project manager because the ideas would come from the stakeholders of the internal teams of the company.

Planning

The project manager could be assigned after all the tasks above are done. However, it is imperative for the manager to follow up to stay updated and relevant to the project.

The planning will be done after the first initiation is done. In this phase, the project managers will work alongside the key stakeholders to define the outlined goals. There are integral factors to look at in this phase including the scope, costs, timelines, risks, issues, and so on. In this phase, the milestones will also be available.

Execution

As the phase name suggests, the project manager and the team will execute the plan to reach the milestones, and eventually the main goals of the project.

The project manager’s role is to assign the work and keep the progress on the right track all the time. They will need to keep the teams on the right track by getting rid of all of the distractions, troubleshooting the problems with the right solutions, as well as taking the project team in the right direction.

Supervising

In this phase, the project manager will monitor, manage, and watch the project progress. It is their responsibility to ensure that the project team is working with synergy to attain the particular milestones. They will make sure how the team performs against the planned milestones.

In common cases, things might not go exactly as planned. The project manager must be able to find out the way out and adapt to every condition.

Finalizing

In this phase, the project managers will ensure that all of the milestones are reached so that they can achieve the main goals of the project. There will be a paper sign-off to indicate the closure of the project.

What do project managers do all day?

The project managers will commonly do these tasks on daily basis:

Communicating the project with all connected parties: The communication is done by emails, calls, meetings in person, and so on. These include communications with the team members, stakeholders, vendors, and the other relatable parties.
Troubleshooting: In any project, there might be issues or problems. The project manager will need to resolve them.
Budgeting: Cost estimation is done daily, weekly, or monthly depending on the types and scales of the project. It revolves around reviewing, funding, and allocating the budget.
Team management: A team will not run without a good direction. And here is where the project manager will fill the role. The leadership of the manager will keep the morale and productivity of the team intact.

What are the skills of a project manager?

To become a good project manager, you will need to have a certain set of skills:

• Leadership

• Interpersonal skills

• Communications

• Time and risks management

• Budgeting

• Persuasion and negotiation

• Problem solving

• Task management

• Tech savvy

And so on….

It would take a lot of skills to become a project manager. If you are interested to become one, it is also important to know that there are also tools and software that can help you to improve the workflow of the project. The right tools will help you to manage the project and team more effectively.

What is the average salary of a project manager?

In Europe, the average salary of a project manager is around 40k to 70k Euros per year.
In the US, it can be from 40k to 80k Dollars per year.
The salary figures can be different depending on the company’s set rates, valuations of the project, valuations of the human resources, and other variables.