Updated May 30, 2023
Introduction to Project Manager Functions
Being a Project Manager can be daunting! While you steer a project towards crossing the finishing line, you will need all the help and knowledge possible to make a success story out of the project that you’ve undertaken. A successful Project Manager perfectly balances the project on their shoulders while dealing with multiple interruptions and obstacles that might come ahead of them.
Get to Know More About The Project Manager Functions
A juggler is a perfect example of ultimate balance, skill, and hard work. Take this to an organizational setting, subtract the juggling pins and clown clothes, add a formal setting and loads of activities and reports, and there you have it… a Project Manager. As daunting as it sounds, it is achievable and can make up for some great experiences to build on your personality.
Companies aim to achieve their vision or objectives by using projects to address specific problems or issues. These projects can either be an improvement or an introduction to a system.
Project management is the glue that brings all these efforts towards creating this change and improving systems together. It’s a discipline that needs a strong, confident individual leading from the front. Project management over the years has evolved to include many tools and techniques, such as Agile, Kanban, JIT, Lean, Six Sigma, and much more. These tools and procedures have been instrumental in getting strategies to be implemented in a systematic and step-by-step manner, thus, encouraging businesses to grow and expand at the same time.
Amidst these all, the Project Manager carefully puts two and two together to get the desired outputs. Managing varied situations and implementing methodologies clearly and concisely is a sign of an excellent Project Manager. If you don’t feel like you’ve reached that level yet, this article will prepare you mentally to hold on to that dream of becoming a successful Project Manager in this highly competitive world.
Who to be a Successful in Project Manager Functions?
Who exactly is a Project Manager? What do these Project Managers do? What role do they play in the grand scheme of taking the project from its initiating stage to its closing stage? Who does become a Project Manager? Well, I had these exact questions in my mind earlier. Still, after being exposed to the project management scene and conducting much research, I found out. Today, this article will throw some light onto the mystery of who a Project Manager is or, better still, who a successful Project Manager is.
Project Managers are personnel who take up projects and, while understanding each intricacy, steer them into successful completion with minimal roadblocks. A successful Project Manager meticulously maintains a strong balance among the triple constraints within project management. These constraints are focal points within a project, and managing them is the key to managing the project. The triple rules look like this:
Balancing time and resources if the budget is tight is a necessity for quality. If the time allocated is limited, it is vital to balance resources and funds. Balancing time and budget if the resources are scarce or aplenty is essential for quality; a Project Manager’s job would revolve around this while managing a project.
Project Managers look at all the aspects that can remotely affect a project; project plans, schedules, handling of reports, and much more. All these put you in the spot of a good Project Manager, but what makes you stand out and ensures complete success is keeping yourself organized and the team close-knitted and happy to work on the project. Communication in such cases needs to give utmost importance as it is through communication that all these can easily handle.
Quality is another aspect of a successful Project Manager. Ensuring quality not only in the final product to the customers and clients but in every task and activity undertaken for the project.
Taming wild weather can bring a Project Manager’s potential and caliber to the forefront. If you go through a plan or a situation and expect every step to go as planned, you must be mistaken. Projects have very volatile and are subject to changes now and then. These changes can be risks or can be opportunities. Here, the Project Manager can be instrumental in ensuring that the focus is on the strategy deployed and the objective to be achieved, and make informed decisions and calculated steps to counter risks and damages or avail of opportunities.
What Responsibility Does A Project Manager Functions Have To Carry?
We already have a very fair idea of who a successful Project Manager is, so it will come easily to you to decipher the responsibilities they carry while administering a project and pushing through the skills of quality control, communication, and people management.
Efficiency is a keyword when it comes to being a Project Manager. A lot is concentrated on this job role, from planning to budgeting and all other operational work. It’s the Project Manager’s responsibility to ensure that the 3 factors are looked after while carrying out this function:
- Quality
- Timeliness
- In line with business objectives
Project managers are responsible for showing strong leadership skills alongside their managerial prowess, as it’s leading from the front that makes it possible for systems, people, and processes to come together into a wonderful amalgamation within the project management world.
Top 8 Project Manager Functions
Project management isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, and if you’re the one holding the cup right now, it’s in your best interest that you get to these top 8 moves or steps for you to deploy, to get success on the chart for all the projects you are aiming for.
PS: These are moves that first-time Project Managers can apply, experienced Project Managers and Project Manager Aspirants who want to make it big in the corporate world. So, let’s dig in and unearth many catalysts for your successful project manager career.
1. Organizing Your Work (project manager functions)
Whether it’s your workplace, workstation, or work itself, the organization is the most fundamental move when you’re a Project Manager. The organization isn’t secluded about Project Manager’s experience and has come across to be an effective tool for everyone to use.
An organized individual must have a clear mind to concentrate on the work and make the project good and great! Keeping your eye on the big picture and placing tasks and activities in perfect alignment with this big picture or vision you have in mind is also a form of organization that the Project Manager’s experience should possess as a basic characteristic.
A project is a jumble of many things to be done in precise amounts and in a slated time. Handling such humongous work charges needs categorization and efficiency to plan what goes where and who does what in such close quarters. It will require you to harbor organization as a personal skill and make efforts to hone it day in and day out.
2. Sifting through the Options (project manager functions)
While we have yet to go into the field of baking and discussing sifting, we will discuss the move that will help you save time, make the most of your decisions, and do the necessary things in a project.
In every project, ample data rounds and information is captured at almost every nook and cranny. By diving into this large amount of data and selecting only what is necessary, you can save time and resources and accelerate your project’s progress. Sometimes, it is important that you sift through all the inputs coming your way and only keep in mind or view the relevant inputs or data, which can be further put to use. These come under the finer details while managing a project, and a manager who pays attention to performing this action can very well meet a successful project. It will help them turn themselves from good Project Managers professionals to successful ones.
3. Communicating Effectively (project manager functions)
Communication, again, is a fundamental unit within the skill set of a Project Manager professional, but what can make you a successful Project Manager is the level of effectiveness you render through communication. Creative use of e-mails and status reports communicating an idea should be taken up by a Project Manager experience who is aiming at success.
Timely communication is also a factor to consider when dealing with schedules, and It is necessary to make judgments and find effective solutions to challenges. Staying true to the project’s vision, with effective communication skills, a successful Project Manager professional can ensure that Work is done and stakeholders are informed as well. This way, even they will know what’s happening with the project and can give timely inputs in case of deviation from the project plan at any point in time.
4. Listening to the Fine Prints (project manager functions)
We’ve always been individuals reading through the fine print and performing our work under that. But, listening is an important trait that not all Project Managers professionals possess. Lending a listening ear to your team members and customers can bring about a high level of collaboration within the realms of a project.
Once you get the information from all the sources, you can swish that magic wand for a successful manager and make decisions based on what you have heard from the people who will execute this change. This trait helps stakeholders and project sponsors understand your dedication to getting things right, as you will be taking notes of everything these individuals expect to make a successful project true to its objective.
5. Maintaining a Domain Expertise (project manager functions)
Technically sound Project Managers have proved to be most successful as they understand the exact execution of the project tasks and activities. Apart from project management skills, techniques, and tools, the added knowledge can bring about an added advantage and give the Project Manager an upper hand in exercising authority and gaining strategic insight.
Suppose you’re a Project Manager experience who is part of an industry apart from your domain. In that case, it will be beneficial for you to conduct an in-depth study into the industry in question or sit down with a team member who knows how the industry and processes work so that you can get an opportunity to suggest appropriate changes to the project.
6. Being a Chameleon (project manager functions)
A successful Project Manager experience needs to be flexible and adaptable, like a chameleon. “Each project is different” is the tagline that will be the crux for Project Managers to act as needed. With each project being different, the approach towards each project should also change.
While there are best practices and standardization concerning project management, Project Managers don’t need to benefit from sticking with them to the T for a successful project. Each project is unique enough for a Project Manager to add their tinge. Each Project Manager also approaches a task differently, like their distinct signature. Being one always to understand the project thoroughly can help mold and bend the approach to accommodate the project’s proceedings.
7. Knowing Your Team (project manager functions)
You know the team members within your team, and you know their designations and roles, and responsibilities in a project. But do you know what else they can contribute? Sitting down with individual team members can bring new perspectives and knowledge about a project team member and can also enable you to improve your pragmatic approach to project management.
Take the time and effort to know more about your team and use this knowledge to improve your project in any way possible. Not into their personal life but their professional life and aspirations. Be not a Project Manager functions but a confidant in disguise.
Knowing them and playing to their strengths can strengthen your stance on the project and enable you to plan the project with them, thus, getting their buy-in.
Remember that a project is not solely about you and what you do to get the desired results; it’s a team effort to change the organization’s workflow and needs you to lead the team.
8. Looking Forward to Work (project manager functions)
Successful Project Manager benefits aim to take projects as a challenge, raise the bar to creativity, and use all project management techniques and methodologies to simplify work and bring out desired outcomes.
Enjoying what you do is extremely critical to success. Successful Project Managers benefit from looking at project management as a career, not just a job. They treat challenges as opportunities to outdo themselves and always seek to learn and grow in the industry of their choice.
Making life and business simple is surely the best thing in the world, and this is how you see it through the eyes of a successful Project Manager benefits.
Recommended Articles
This is a guide to Project Manager Functions. Here we have discussed the basic concept, responsibility, along with the top 8 Project Manager Functions in detail.You may look at the following articles to learn more –
