Consistently delivering projects on time and under budget is the primary objective of a project manager. This article describes the most important hats they wear when managing projects.
Project Management Institute (PMI) has defined project as a temporary endeavor that creates a unique product, service or result. In other words, Project Management can be defined as a set of activities performed in all phases including initiation, planning, executing, monitoring and controlling, closing to ensure the project is completed on time and under budget. A Project Managers’ role in a nutshell is being completely responsible for the successful planning executions, monitoring, control and closure of a project.
Consistently delivering projects on time and under budget is the primary objective of a project manager. Anyone who has managed a project or overseen the management of a project in the real world would know that they have more than one hat to wear when comes to project management. Most of the Project Managers wear at least the below 3 hats regardless of nature, type, size or complexity of the projects being managed.
Project Management Competency: A general definition of competency is the combination of knowledge and skill. Knowledge is acquired by formal and informal study and experience. Skills mean the ability to apply the knowledge when managing projects. Project Managers have this face when applying their solid understanding of project management skills, knowledge, processes, templates and tools in day to day operations to manage a project from initiation till delivery.
People Management: You can see 2 P’s in any organization, and without these 2 P’s you cannot define an organization. One is Product and other is the People who produce the product of a project. Executing a project from beginning to completion involves not just technical knowledge of tools like creating a work break down structure, Gant Chart etc but also people management skills such as ability to communicate, negotiate, listen and lead. They wear this face to manage human resources who are working on a project to produce the product of a project.
Domain knowledge: It’s nothing but the knowledge you have in a particular field or the knowledge you posses which is specific to an application. Let’s say if you are working on a telecommunication billing domain, you need to possess sufficient knowledge about how telecommunication billing works in order to guide the team. Project Managers wear this face when providing technical guidance to the team and when making important decisions during the life cycle of a project.
Are there any other key faces you can think of, please share your views.
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