The Roles and Responsibilities of a Project Manager

According to several studies, governments will spend more than $10 trillion on reconstruction projects in the next 10 years. This means there will be millions of projects — more than ever — put into production within the decade, and each will require a project manager. Regardless of the deliverable of that project — whether it’s a new building or a new feature release — you still want that project to be completed successfully how to become a project manager and in the most efficient way, from beginning to end. Trusted by 20,000 businesses and 6,000 agencies, Teamwork.com lets you easily manage, track, and customize multiple complex projects. The full compensation package for a project manager depends on a variety of factors, including but not limited to the candidate’s experience and geographic location. See below for detailed information on the average project manager salary.

But they can also be found in any industry where teams need to focus on one project at a time. Project managers are also common in construction, where they oversee building projects from start to finish. In engineering, project managers manage the development of a specific device or piece of technology.

What makes a good project manager?

Which of these is the best one for you depends entirely on your time, budget, the industry you’re aiming for, and your previous experience. One thing an aspiring project manager should never expect, however, is to immediately land a job as a project manager. Google Drive is used as a shared digital warehouse, it’s an easy and secure way to store and share documents, plans, images, and other important files that need to be accessible to all members of the team. However, there are slight differences in being a project manager in different industries — say, IT and HR — and this is exactly what we’ll be discussing next. These two things eventually cause stress and frustration to pile on, projects to fail, and people to change careers. It’s important to note that project “planning” doesn’t actually end until the project does.

Project managers are the ones responsible for ensuring the entire team understands the needs for certain projects or tasks. They take a leadership role on the team, work across multiple groups within the organization, and often utilize software to keep everything on-track. Project management is a relatively new field that is growing in popularity as more organizations understand the need for one central person who is keeping everything about a project or plan going. A Project Manager’s duties and responsibilities include ensuring teams meet all scope requirements by completing jobs properly according to their contract or agreement with the client. In addition, they must provide concrete guidance on what everyone needs to do and the most efficient way to complete each step. In this article, we will delve into the key roles and responsibilities of a project manager, shedding light on their pivotal contributions and the strategies they use to deliver successful projects.

Project manager responsibilities

Most of the stakeholders, including senior management, will be more supportive of the project when that connection is made because they will clearly see that the project contributes to an organizational priority. A big advantage of this career is that the skills required are transferable. Project managers often have the flexibility to easily move between industries. One of us (Antonio) spent 10 years in consulting, moved to banking, got bored, and ended up working in pharma.

• And yet, to most laymen, the role of project management — and by extension, project managers — is not always the clearest.
• Each phase emphasizes a different mix of project management skills and knowledge areas, including integration, scope, time, cost, quality, human resources, communication, risk procurement, and stakeholder management.
• Clockify is a free and intuitive time-tracking tool that helps project managers organize and manage their time and that of their team in order to get through the project without missing deadlines.

The following list includes the key responsibilities every project manager takes on. If open source project courses are of interest, also consider some of these free project management courses to help improve project-related knowledge and skills. Many businesses are adopting agile as the preferred project methodology, creating the need for employees to develop their knowledge in this area.

Conclusion: PMs expertly navigate projects towards success

So, if at any point in life, you decide that you are suited for this “ virtually recession-proof” position, all it takes is a little effort and the right certification to get you going. Project managers are the unsung heroes behind every new project, behind every new building, bridge, gadget, or piece of software. It is their job to coordinate teams and act as mediators between the teams and the client to ensure everything goes smoothly — and that the project is finished within the set temporal and budgetary constraints. Regardless of the industry, project managers are leaders and coordinators whose main responsibility is to keep the project from going off the rails and help it reach its final destination. In cases like these, project managers must be bold, assertive, and insistent.

Agile certs such as the Agile Certified Practitioner (PMI-ACP) can give you a leg up, as can Scrum-based certs such as the Certified ScrumMaster (CSM). See our lists of top agile certs and top Scrum credentials to take your career to the next level. Risk assessment and management is, once again, a process, rather than a step in project management. It’s done regularly throughout the project in order to identify potential threats to its development, and either eliminate or contain them.