The Role of a Project Manager: Project Management Responsibilities
Summary
TLDRThis video script outlines the multifaceted role of a project manager through an 8-step project process. It emphasizes defining project goals, evaluating business cases, engaging stakeholders, planning, managing risks, leading teams, monitoring progress, and closing projects effectively. The script also highlights the importance of strategic alignment, operational liaison, and people management, including team development and motivation.
Takeaways
- 📝 The first role of a project manager is to define the project's goal, objectives, and scope by collaborating with stakeholders.
- 💼 The project manager must critically assess the project's benefits and costs, creating a business case that aligns with organizational standards.
- 🤝 Stakeholder engagement is crucial, and the project manager should establish a management process and plan to maintain respectful interactions.
- 🗓️ Project planning involves creating a comprehensive plan that includes timescales, resources, and tasks, along with contingency planning.
- 🛠️ The project manager is responsible for selecting and implementing tools to support planning, monitoring, and reporting.
- 👥 Identifying and managing the project team involves allocating roles, providing guidance, and fostering a cohesive team environment.
- 🚧 Risk management is a key responsibility, requiring the identification, quantification, and mitigation of project risks.
- 🔍 Monitoring and controlling the project involves overseeing daily operations, ensuring quality, and adhering to timelines and budgets.
- 📊 Regular reporting is essential for communication, accountability, transparency, and governance within the project.
- 🏁 Project closure requires a structured approach, including following a closure checklist and conducting lessons learned reviews.
- 🌟 The project manager also has strategic responsibilities, liaising with other managers to ensure project interactions and resource allocation are effective.
- 🧩 As a people manager, the project manager must facilitate good practices, team communication, motivation, and professional development for team members.
Q & A
What is the first step in the 8-step project process mentioned in the video?
-The first step is to answer the question 'What do you want?' which involves creating a project definition by working with stakeholders to define the project's goals, objectives, and scope.
What is the role of a project manager in creating a business case?
-The project manager's role is to critically evaluate the benefits and costs of the project, document this in a business case or project proposal, and ensure it aligns with the organization's procedures, processes, and standards.
Why is stakeholder engagement important in the project management process?
-Stakeholder engagement is crucial for creating a management process and plan that ensures the project team interacts with stakeholders in an appropriate and respectful manner, which includes developing and following communication plans.
What does the project manager need to consider when planning the project?
-The project manager needs to consider timescales, resources, tasks, and creating a robust and comprehensive project plan. They also need to think about contingency plans and select the right tools to support planning, monitoring, and reporting.
How does the project manager ensure the project adheres to quality standards?
-The project manager ensures adherence to quality standards by identifying the right quality standards, planning for them, and reporting on compliance through the project's governance procedures.
What are the responsibilities of a project manager when it comes to team management?
-The project manager is responsible for identifying team members, allocating responsibilities, providing guidance and support, coaching team members to thrive, and facilitating team meetings to maintain morale and effective communication.
What is the purpose of risk management in the project management process?
-Risk management aims to identify potential risks, understand their implications, and put in place strategies and plans to manage those risks, including contingency planning, risk reduction, and risk transfer.
How does the project manager monitor and control the project's progress?
-The project manager monitors and controls the project by managing the day-to-day running, overseeing work quality and effectiveness, ensuring deliverables meet standards, and complying with timelines and budget constraints.
What is the importance of regular reporting in project management?
-Regular reporting is important for communication, accountability, transparency, and governance. It helps keep stakeholders informed and ensures the project aligns with organizational goals and standards.
What are the key responsibilities of a project manager during project closure?
-During project closure, the project manager is responsible for following a project closure checklist to ensure proper closure and conducting lessons learned reviews to enhance team members' professional development.
How should a project manager liaise with other managers within the organization?
-A project manager should liaise with other managers to ensure project interactions are effective, avoid overlaps or gaps, manage resource compatibility, and coordinate with operational managers to avoid adverse effects on critical operations.
What are the people management responsibilities of a project manager?
-The project manager's people management responsibilities include identifying and disseminating good practices, facilitating team communication, developing the team as a cohesive unit, motivating individuals, maintaining team morale, and supporting team members' professional development.
Outlines
📋 Project Manager's Role in Project Lifecycle
The speaker outlines the role of a project manager through the lens of the project lifecycle and an 8-step project process. The first step involves creating a project definition by working with stakeholders to define the project's goals, objectives, and scope. The second step is to create a business case, evaluating the project's benefits and costs. The third step focuses on stakeholder engagement, ensuring respectful and appropriate interaction with all parties involved. The fourth step is about project planning, including timescales, resources, and tasks, as well as considering quality standards and contingency plans.
🤝 Leadership and Team Management
This paragraph delves into the project manager's responsibilities in managing and leading the team. It starts with identifying team members and their roles, followed by allocating responsibilities and providing guidance and support. The speaker emphasizes the importance of project leadership, including coordinating team meetings, maintaining team morale, and ensuring effective communication among team members. Additionally, the project manager must manage risks, monitor project progress, control quality, and adhere to timelines and budgets. Regular reporting and attending project board meetings are also part of the role.
🔍 Risk Management and Project Closure
The speaker discusses risk management as a critical aspect of a project manager's role, which includes identifying, quantifying, and strategizing to mitigate risks. The seventh step in the project process is about monitoring and controlling the project's progress, ensuring deliverables meet quality standards and comply with timelines and budget constraints. The final step is about closing the project in an orderly manner, following a project closure checklist and conducting lessons learned reviews to enhance team members' professional development.
🌟 Strategic Integration and People Management
The last paragraph highlights the project manager's strategic responsibilities, which involve liaising with other managers and project managers to ensure project interactions are effective and resource allocation is compatible. The project manager must also liaise with operational managers to avoid adverse effects on critical operations. Additionally, the paragraph emphasizes people management responsibilities, such as identifying and disseminating good practices, facilitating team communication, developing the team as a cohesive unit, and motivating individuals to maintain high morale. The project manager is also responsible for the professional development of team members through training, coaching, and mentoring.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡Project Manager
💡Project Lifecycle
💡Project Definition
💡Business Case
💡Stakeholder Engagement
💡Project Planning
💡Contingency Plans
💡Quality Standards
💡Team Management
💡Risk Management
💡Project Closure
💡Strategic Lens
💡People Management
Highlights
The role of a project manager is explored through the lens of the project lifecycle and an 8-step project process.
Step 1 involves working with stakeholders to define the project's goals, objectives, and scope.
In Step 2, project managers create a business case, evaluating project benefits and costs.
Project managers may need to understand financial evaluation methodologies for business case development.
Step 3 focuses on stakeholder engagement, creating a management process and plan for effective communication.
Step 4 is about planning the project, including timescales, resources, tasks, and quality standards.
Contingency planning and selecting project management tools are also part of the planning process.
Step 5 emphasizes managing and leading the project team, from identifying members to providing support.
Project managers facilitate team meetings and maintain team morale in Step 6.
Risk management in Step 7 involves identifying, quantifying, and strategizing to manage project risks.
Step 8 is about project delivery, monitoring, controlling, and ensuring quality and compliance with timelines and budget.
Regular reporting and attending project board meetings are crucial for project governance.
Closing projects in a structured way and conducting lessons learned reviews are part of project closure responsibilities.
Project managers also have strategic responsibilities, liaising with other managers for resource and timing compatibility.
Operational managers need to be informed about project timing to avoid adverse effects on critical operations.
As a project manager, you are also a people manager, responsible for team communication, motivation, and development.
Developing team members' capabilities, professional skills, and careers is an essential part of project management.
The video invites viewers to comment if anything important is missed and to like, subscribe, and enable notifications for updates.
Transcripts
in this video I want to talk about the
role of a project manager to understand
the role of a project manager I want to
start by looking at it through the lens
of the project lifecycle and the project
process that we need to follow and to
help me I'm going to use the framework
of my 8 step project process step one is
to answer the question what do you want
it's about creating a project definition
so the first role of a project manager
is to work with stakeholders to work
with sponsors suppliers users everyone
who's involved in the project
to define the goal of the project its
objectives and the scope of what you're
going to be doing and also what you're
not going to be doing there's a lot more
of course to project definition but
creating that is the first component of
the role of the project manager step two
is to answer the question does it stack
up this is about creating a business
case or a project proposal or an
investment appraisal so the role of the
project manager here is to look
critically at the benefits and the costs
of the project and to weigh them up
against one another and to document that
and you need to do it in a way that is
fully accountable and matches the
procedures and processes and standards
of the organization within which you're
working consequently you may need to
understand a fair amount about financial
evaluation methodologies it's also
important to note that in some
organizations your role is to put
together a business case a proposal that
is a piece of advocacy that makes the
case for the project you're proposing
but in other organizations your role is
to evaluate your project against a
number of suitable alt
tips so that the decision-makers can
weigh up most different alternatives and
make a decision based on a much more
objective business case document step 3
is to answer the question who cares and
this is all about stakeholder engagement
so your role is to create a stakeholder
engagement management process and plan
and it's to spearhead engagement with
stakeholders making sure that your
project team as a whole and the
individuals work with stakeholders in an
appropriate and respectful manner and of
course this also involves creating
communications plans and following those
plans step four is about answering a
question how will we get what we want so
this is all about planning so the first
role of a project manager that falls out
of this is to plan the project to get to
grips with the timescales the resources
the tasks everything you need to make
sure that you've got a robust
comprehensive project plan and then the
second thing that goes along with this
is to start thinking about contingency
plans as well of course you will also
need at this stage to think about
evaluating and selecting and
implementing the tools you need to
support not only the planning process
but monitoring against your plan and
reporting
finally I'd suggest that another part of
a project managers role here is to start
thinking about quality what are the
right quality standards and how are we
going to make sure that we adhere to as
quality standards and how do we report
that properly through the governance
procedures of our project the fifth step
is to answer the question who will help
and this is about managing and leading
the team that will help you to deliver
your project so your roles here start
with identifying the team members that
you'll need the roles that you'll need
to fulfill and the best people who are
available to fulfill them and then you
know your next part of your role is
about allocating responsibilities
providing guidance and support and
coaching to enable your team members to
thrive this is the part of your role
that is really about project leadership
it's about leading people and I'd also
say that it's part of your role here to
coordinate and facilitate team meetings
to maintain team morale and to make sure
that your team members communicate
effectively with one another step six is
to answer the question what if it goes
wrong this is about risk management so
here your responsibility is to identify
risks to understand and quantify their
implications and to start to put in
place appropriate strategies and plans
to manage those risks down you'll be
looking at contingency planning you'll
be looking at risk reduction you'll be
looking at transfer of risks and all of
the other strategies that you'll need
step seven is to answer the question
how's it going this is the delivery part
of your project responsibility it's
about monitoring controlling what's
going on and of course the first
responsibility under this is to manage
the day-to-day running of your project
to oversee what people are doing and to
evaluate the quality
the effectiveness of their work to make
sure that the deliverables they're
producing meet the standards that you've
set and to make sure they are able to
comply with the timelines and the budget
constraints that you need to put people
under and that reminds me that budget
management is one of your
responsibilities so two is regular
reporting good project reporting is
partly about communication but it's also
about accountability transparency and
governance and finally thinking about
project governance you need to attend
project board meetings and meet
frequently with your sponsor and with
other senior stakeholders and finally
step eight is to answer the question how
did it go and this is about closing your
project down in a structured and orderly
way so your responsibilities are to
follow your own project closure
checklist to make sure everything has
been done to get your project properly
closed and I think your second
responsibility here is to make sure you
learn the lessons lessons learned
reviews are great for organizations they
often produce good and worthy
documentation but many organizations
don't do much with it I think your
principal responsibility is to your team
members for you and each of your
colleagues to learn from your experience
and take that forward to each have those
lessons enhance and develop your own
careers outside of those eight steps I
think there are a couple of other lenses
we need to use to look at your
responsibilities as a project manager
and the first one is a strategic lens as
project manager you need to liaise with
other managers within your organization
you need to liaise with other project
managers to make sure that the
interactions between your projects and
theirs work effectively that there are
no inappropriate overlaps or gaps
and to make sure that your calls aren't
resources and their Court on resources
are compatible particularly in terms of
timing and you also need to liaise with
managers in the operational parts of
your organization where your project
touches upon their operation because
they will need to know in good time and
Lily Hayes with you about the timing so
that you do not adversely affect
critical operations the final lens that
I'd adopt is one that recognizes that as
a project manager you're not just a
manager of the project you are a manager
of the people on the project so this is
the kind of people management people
leadership responsibilities and there
are a number of elements to it you need
to be able to identify and apply and
disseminate good practices for your team
you need to facilitate good team
communication between individual members
what you don't want is for you to be the
hub of all communication so that if
you're not there communication could
break down you have a responsibility to
develop your team so that your team
works well as a cohesive unit another
responsibility is motivating individuals
and making sure that team morale is at
its optimum and if you sense team morale
or individual motivations are flagging
to intervene to deal with the problem
and to bring people back so effective
working motivation
and finally I think you have a
responsibility to develop the people
under your leadership to support them to
guide them to develop their capabilities
their their professional skills and
their careers so you'll be deploying
things like training like for cert ating
conversations coaching and mentoring so
as a project manager you have a lot of
responsibilities it's a big job and I've
kind of rushed my way through it
summarising as I go I hope I haven't
missed anything but if you think I have
please do comment below so that other
people can debate what else needs to go
into the project managers responsibility
said it's a big job and I hope I've done
it justice so if you've enjoyed this
video please do give it a like please do
subscribe to our Channel and hit the
notification bell if you want an email
every time I drop a new video on YouTube
in the meantime I look forward to seeing
you in the next one
関連動画をさらに表示
Communicating and Working with Stakeholders | Google Project Management Certificate
SPM(Software Project Management) with real life examples
What is Project Management? | Explained in 10 Minutes
What is Project Integration Management? Processes, Strategies & Tools - AIMS Education
Why is it important to align projects with organizational strategy?-The Project Management Talks
023 Scope Planning
5.0 / 5 (0 votes)