Project management is the discipline that uses procedures and guidelines to plan, organize, carry out, and oversee how new projects or changes are implemented inside a company. Project management uses strategies, techniques, abilities, knowledge, and experience to accomplish particular project goals under predetermined guidelines.
Final deliverables in project management are subject to a limited amount of time and money. The key components of project management are Time, Cost, Scope, and Quality. Project managers achieve this by directing their teams and managing resources using various approaches, processes, and tools. Take Project Management courses for beginners to enhance your knowledge.
Who is a Project Manager?
A project manager organizes, plans, and executes projects according to budgets and schedules. A project manager leads a team, defines goals, communicates with stakeholders, and oversees the completion of a project. A project manager is responsible for the success or failure of any project, from marketing campaigns to building construction to computer systems to launching new products.
Project managers understand what makes projects successful and how they play a strategic role in making organizations successful. Almost every industry has a demand for project managers.
What does a Project Manager do?
Project managers are given defined roles and duties for achieving the goals of their projects. There are never any two alike days in a project manager's job. Project managers' exact responsibilities differ depending on their industry, company, and project type.
Based on various aspects, such as the type of project, the demands of the business, and the competence of co-workers working on the project, the project manager will design and operate the project, lead the various team, and decide how to approach the task. In general, all project managers are responsible for managing each phase of the "project life cycle," broken into five main stages:
- Initiating: In this phase, the project manager defines the project's goal, purpose, and scope. Then, they identify essential internal and external stakeholders, discuss common expectations, and secure the necessary approval to advance a project.
- Planning: in this phase project manager create the project plan focused on the decided goals with critical stakeholders. In this phase, the project manager outlines the key deliverables and tasks, assigns deadlines, and states the dependencies between them.
- Executing: In this phase, the teams work on the allotted tasks to reach the project goal, and the project manager assigns these tasks and budgets and monitors them to complete on time.
- Monitoring and Controlling: In this phase, the project manager monitors the progress and budget and compares the ongoing improvement to the scheduled one.
- Closing: In this phase, Project managers work to guarantee that all tasks required to produce the desired outcome are finished.
Apart from the project lifecycle planning, a project manager performs these responsibilities daily:
- Communicate with team members and stakeholders.
- Identification of issues and possible solutions
- Cost estimations
- Time management
- Team building
Benefits of Being a Project Manager
Project managers are the center of any project and act as a link between the team and stakeholders and juggle every day with constant changes and deadlines. However, many reasons still satisfy and fill a project manager with enthusiasm. The benefits of a project manager are given below:
- Project Variety: The project lifecycle brings continuous changes, and to meet these changes, a project manager gets a chance to explore new products and technologies across different industries.
- Meeting New People: A project manager communicates with clients, cross-functional teams, vendors, and the project stakeholders to achieve the project goals, allowing interaction with new people regularly.
- Travel Opportunities: It is common for project managers to travel a certain amount, especially if they are managing multiple sites in a large project. Despite modern-day virtual communication, project managers still need to travel to locations to monitor progress and meet teams.
- You are Always Learning: There is a continuous change in technologies. It challenges a project manager to keep up to date with new trends and technologies and allows continuous learning.
- Well-Organized: An organized work environment and the ability to solve problems under pressure depend on the excellent organization. When project managers are well organized, they can better prioritize their tasks and remain focused on the big picture, and this habit works wonders in their personal life.
- You can Change Industries: With a rapid change in technology and the abstract nature of the job, a project manager is in demand in most industries. However, these characteristics don't restrict them to one industry; they can switch into industries effortlessly.
- High Salaries/Package: Project managers can specialize and enhance their skills by enrolling in a professional Project Management course. And it helps in excelling them in the demanding job and financially rewarding.
- Job Satisfaction: There's no better way to create a new solution with a great team than to make your customer money and exceed their expectations, even though project management can sometimes be demanding and unpredictable. When all you're doing is your job, it can motivate you to do better in the future.
- Unique Challenges: A project manager works on different projects and interacts with various teams often, allowing them to face unique challenges and apply their problem-solving and creative thinking.
- Skill Development: To deliver complex projects in hyper-competitive environments allows a project manager to develop different essential skills like.
- Problem-Solving: Project managers need problem-solving skills to deal with daily issues. People are the key to practical problem-solving in project management, and relationships directly impact how quickly and effectively you can solve problems. To solve complex problems for organizations on time and within budget, project managers remain objective, analyze facts, and evaluate options without bias.
- Leadership Skills: A project manager's Role includes a wide range of responsibilities, such as effective planning, task coordination, managing projects, inspiring the team, and making crucial decisions that affect the progress of a project. Leadership skills ensure achieving all success in these responsibilities.
- Communication: For successful project management, strong communication skills are necessary for communicating messages, delivering presentations, and sharing visions, ideas, and goals.
- Budget and Schedule Management: Project managers are responsible for developing viable project budgets. These professionals must have the right skills to produce spreadsheets, track costs, and identify overruns.
- Seeing a Plan, you Developed Come Together: In this manner, the project manager feels personally appreciated the efforts and work that went into achieving the project's objectives.
- Creating Something from Nothing: Project managers are the pioneer of any project as they start a project from scratch setting the scope for launching a service in the market and feel a sense of empowerment by creating something needful.
- Empowering Teams: A project manager should give their employees honest feedback on their performance to help them feel empowered within their roles, boost motivation among their colleagues, provide clear, specific feedback and highlight their strengths.
- Delivering Business Value: A project manager's primary responsibility is to understand the project's vision and provide the identified business value to the customer. The project manager balances the project lifecycle by finding issues and solutions and boosting business value.
- Delegating Work: A great deal of work is often involved in being a project manager. Additionally, it is a good idea to understand how to distribute your tasks under pressure. Someone is given responsibility or authority for a task when delegated, usually between a manager or another team member higher up in the organization.
Benefits of Having a Project Manager for Organization/Business
A project manager has many abilities, including effective oral and written communication, leadership, planning, problem-solving, time management, and negotiating. In addition to their traditional skills, project managers now need strong interpersonal and business skills as their work goes beyond merely carrying out the project plan.
A project manager's role is much more than delivering the project on time, within budget, and under the project scope. It also involves keeping clients and teams on the same page, setting the vision for the project's success, and balancing all necessary steps to maintain success. When projects run well, the benefits extend beyond delivering a satisfactory customer product or service.
Manage Budgets and Timelines: Project managers are essential for a business because they can negotiate timelines and budgets with key stakeholders, teams, and management. Without an efficient project manager, projects can be delayed and over budget.
Improve Productivity and Overall Work: When working on a project, productivity is assessed by looking at how end outcomes and cost or time relate to one another. Benefits of having a project manager ensure productivity by establishing clear project objectives, communicating the scope to the team efficiently, and continuously interacting with the team and stakeholders.
Mitigate Project Risks: Risk is any conceivable circumstance that could positively or negatively impact the project. A project manager plans a structured way to tackle the risks in the project in five steps:
- Identify the risks.
- Analyze the potential impact of the risks.
- Assign the priority to each risk like high, medium, and low, and handle it accordingly.
- Plan to mitigate the risks.
- Monitor the risks continuously.
Improve Relationship with Stakeholders: A project manager plans a stakeholder engagement plan that identifies the strategies to encourage the involvement of stakeholders in the project that helps to improve the relationship among the stakeholders.
Increase in Customer Satisfaction: Customers are the main force behind project management operations and must be involved from the beginning, requirements gathering, until the end provider of products and services. Thus, a project manager generates quality products or services to meet customer satisfaction and execute the project plan accordingly.
Gain a Competitive Advantage: Strategic planning is used by managers to preserve, create, and grow competitive advantage. As a result, the manager continuously evaluates the business, its value offer, the market, competitors, and clients. The management must create new goals, value propositions, and strategies.
Project Manager Benefits Based on Role
1. Project Manager
A project manager's job is to tame the chaos. Their support gives workflow structure, rationalizes expenses, and focuses on timelines. Project managers help businesses deliver products on time and within budget. They are highly compensated and in-demand experts.
2. Associate Project Manager
An associate manager works alongside the Project Manager and assists in the planning and implementation of the project. They also perform administrative duties, like setting up meetings, drawing invoices, and drawing estimates.
3. Senior Project Manager
Senior project managers must create a strategy to complete a project, collaborating with other departments to ensure their needs and desires are met within the project's parameters and financial constraints. In addition, senior project managers provide feedback and advice and encourage the team members to meet the deadlines.
4. Director of Program Management
A director of program management has a great deal of attention to detail on efficiency and benefits the organization's wide range of responsibilities.
- Ensure that the introduction of new programs satisfies business goals.
- Monitor employee performance to make sure they are fulfilling their job responsibilities.
- Collaborate with other organizational units to make sure initiatives are delivered as intended.
- Develop the public awareness strategies.
- Conduct research to find fresh chances for market expansion.
5. Project Coordinator
The work of a project coordinator is significant to the success of a project within an organization. A project manager's responsibility is to keep projects on schedule and within budget, and a project coordinator's primary responsibility is to oversee smaller parts of a larger project. Project coordinators use spreadsheets to track budgets, dates, and other information regarding a project.
In addition to organizing contracts and financial files, reporting, and billing, project coordinators are often responsible for ordering supplies, bookkeeping, and receiving payments. Additionally, these professionals coordinate and attend meetings and develop project strategies.
6. Project Scheduler
The scheduler collaborates closely with technical specialists, project leads, and project managers and design, create and manage project schedules.
7. Project Team Leader
A project lead is a professional who coordinates the project teams and conducts project briefs. In addition, they provide a sense of purpose, motivate and offer emotional support to project members.
Project Manager Benefits in Industry
A project manager is one of today's most exciting and diverse careers. There are many industries and settings where project managers are essential. Although project management has many paths to success, aspiring professionals often need to familiarize themselves with the field before beginning their career training. KnowledgeHut online training for Project Management emphasizes the particular aspects of project management and provides analytical skills and a strategic mindset, and their benefits to different industries are given below:
- Construction: A construction project manager is a professional who oversees all aspects of the building process and collaborates with engineers and architects. A construction project manager benefits the industry by,
- Negotiate contracts with vendors to grab profitable agreements.
- Obtain authorized licenses and permits.
- Collaborate with architects and engineers and set the specific goals of the project.
- Healthcare: As a project manager at a healthcare facility, you would be in charge of several projects for the company. These range from starting a plan to boost emergency response by 10% to beginning a new wing or employing specialists for a new medical specialization.
- Technology: Due to the quick changes in the technology world, systems and technology frequently require upgrades and modifications. A project manager can help with this. In addition, a project manager for information technology oversees a project's budget and schedule to ensure that it is implemented smoothly.
- Real Estate projects are complex and include moving parts with numerous suppliers, contractors, and working professionals. With the experience and knowledge to manage things seamlessly, a project manager handles the project efficiently and mitigates the risks.
- Marketing: As project objectives and deliverables are specified from the beginning, a project manager assists marketing teams in decreasing complexity, offering better performances, shortening schedules, and boosting their effectiveness.
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Who is a Freelancer Project Manager?
A contract-based freelance project manager offers impartial management services to a customer or business. Almost every industry needs management, and a project manager is best suitable for this. Although specific duties differ depending on the kind of services a client provides, the fundamental objective of every freelance project manager is to supervise the project's conclusion. A freelancer project manager frequently entails putting together a team, establishing timelines and goals, and updating management on the project's status.
Benefits of Independent Project Manager
Working as an independent project manager is very rewarding and comes with several following benefits:
1. Freedom to Choose your clients: The essential advantage of an independent project manager is gaining the choice to select your clients and projects of your interest. By freelancing, you can pursue your hobbies and choose to work on tasks that suit your strengths and interests. Additionally, because they can manage multiple clients at once, independent project managers have greater variety in their work and more chances to pick up helpful expertise rapidly.
2. Flexibility: Independent project managers create an excellent work-life balance, as it gives flexibility and freedom to schedule your day accordingly. To avoid overworking or setting unreasonable expectations with clients that require responses at all hours, it is essential, to be honest about your working methods.
3. Financial Independence: You can choose your day rate and keep your profits while working as a freelance project manager. Being independent on how much your earning potential can be every month is frequently one of the most attractive features of going freelance and can make a significant impact.
4. Exposure/New Perspective: A freelancer project manager works with different industry projects, interacts with various-minded people, and is exposed to various new challenges. They evolve their perspective toward work and continuously learn new skills.
Benefits of Employing an Independent Project Manager
Many employers are unclear about whether projects should be managed internally or by an outsider when it comes to project management. While it is true that there are some advantages to hiring a project manager from the firm, most of the time, it is a better choice to hire a freelance project manager, as hiring them brings a list of benefits:
1. Expertise: Experienced project managers use their knowledge from working on projects and choose knowledgeable stakeholders and teams who can accomplish jobs affordably, steer clear of common project blunders, and suggest ways to cut costs.
2. No Conflicts: A independent project manager is non-bias with decision making as there is nothing at stake, and they can resolve the conflicts between teams, stakeholders, and vendors efficiently.
3. Avoid Mistakes: When working on various projects, a project manager acquires a set of skills and develops the ability to understand the customers' needs, know the potential mistakes, and plan the project, keeping them in mind to avoid failure.
4. Minimize Risk: Perk of hiring an independent project manager brings the minimization of risks, as they work on various projects and are aware of potential risks, and have structured and proactive strategies to handle them with tested methods of brainstorming, storyboarding, etc.
5. Quality: The project manager oversees the entire quality management process and ensures that everyone engaged is fully aware of the quality standards that will be applied to the project. They create and foster a quality culture by promoting the idea that achieving the desired level of quality is essential rather than completing the project on budget and on time, which is an important technique for quality management. Each project participant has a part to play in producing high-quality outcomes.
6. Time and Cost Saving: A project manager uses the cost management process to estimate, allocate and control the project time and cost. A company can reduce budget overruns by predicting future expenses through cost management. Cost and time projections are calculated at the project planning stage and must be approved before work is started.
7. Partnership: An independent project manager guides clients throughout the project lifecycle from beginning to end and is always available for assistance and support. By showing their clients that they can entirely rely on their project manager, they build trust with them.
8. Communication: A project or organization's success depends on open, fruitful communication. The project manager is a liaison between clients, translators, reviewers, translation engineers, and executive management.
9. Start to Finish: A project manager is a driver of the project and drives it from project initiation, planning, execution, and monitoring to closure.
10. Proactive Management: A project manager uses a proactive approach to work with stakeholders and cross-functional teams by identifying, analyzing, and mitigating possible risks. Proactive project managers concentrate on efforts in the long term rather than the here and now. They think their activities count and can change a situation by taking action.
Conclusion
From small businesses with just one project manager overseeing a few projects to global IT companies that employ highly skilled project managers in charge of ambitious initiatives, project managers are essential components of practically every type of organization.
A project manager's job is to ensure the organization's profitability by providing the efficient planning that a team needs, keeping up with clients' expectations, and handling the overall tasks and schedule.
A project manager is a focal point of the project and works multidimensionally to improve the quality of an organization and lead to overall profitability. Universities with project management degrees provide formal education for aspiring project managers. However, people who want to enter a project management position right once can opt to pursue certification by enrolling in online PRINCE2 Foundation and Practitioner training.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
1. Is Project Manager a good career?
Yes, project management is a lucrative career with high compensation and a wide variety of tasks, but it is also challenging and occasionally very stressful.
2. Do Project Managers get bonuses?
Yes, the project managers get the bonuses, but that depends on the project's complexity and risks.
3. What are the three critical skills of a Project Manager?
The three critical skills of a project manager:
- Communication
- Problem-solving skills
- Leadership skills
4. What are the five roles of a Project Manager?
Project managers have one of the most challenging and complex jobs and play different roles and responsibilities in an organization. The top five roles they play are:
- Implement project management methods.
- Plan the project scope, timeline, budget, etc.
- Execute the plan.
- Project control
- Closing of the project
5. Why are Independent Project Managers most effective?
Hiring an independent project manager is most effective as they are experts in handling the challenges with their years of experience, can work as a partner, bring new perspectives among the team, and most importantly unbiased decision makers.
