Role of the Project Manager | By Duncan Haughey | Read time minutes
Here are my essential tips and reminders for those new to project management or hoping to enter the profession:
- Project management has a definite beginning and end. It is not a continuous process.
- A plan is not a project; it is a tool.
- Thirty-five percent of projects get consumed in overheads and administration.
- Gain knowledge and understanding before starting a project.
- Projects must meet customer requirements, be on time and budget.
- Always remember revision numbers and to check that all those involved in the project are using the same version of the project plan.
- Know who's in the project environment and manage them.
- Projects need good communication. Ensure that a suitable communications infrastructure exists.
- Projects don't run without politics so control the politics.
- Analyse the impact each of the players in a project might have.
- Ask for the information you need to run a project well, for example, a weekly breakdown of costs and hours.
- Keep the project momentum going.
- Monitor and control any risks.
- Ask how much money do I have, how much time and what deliverable is required.
- Know what you own. Personal success factors are, for example, product fit for purpose and customer sign-off.
- Agree with the customer the critical success factors for the project. These maybe just a few items from a long wish list. Deliver what the customer decides.
- Project managers are rarely hands on with project tasks. The running of a project is work enough.
- Manage, minimise and control.
- Project failures will happen.
- If there is anything to do, do it.