What Does a Project Manager Do?

By Lora Korpar

In Brief: (1) Project managers are responsible for identifying project goals, plus managing and overseeing their implementation. (2) Several project management styles exist, and the one you choose should depend on the type of project and work environment. (3) Listen to your team members to build a stronger relationship with them.

A project manager is tasked with a work project’s organization and execution. They must oversee the big-picture goals plus the day-to-day operations that ensure those goals come to fruition. Though project management looks different depending on the industry and management style, all project managers can benefit from certain strategies and skills.

Project Manager Duties and Responsibilities

Project managers are responsible for everything from broad objectives to specific planning details. They are not the same as program managers, who coordinate and oversee large-scope business objectives.?

CIO and Coursera say these are some of the duties project managers are accountable for:

• Defining clear project goals.
• Developing schedules and budgets.
• Communicating with stakeholders.
• Leading and monitoring teams.
• Closing the project when it is complete.

"A really broad overview is that a project manager is basically keeping tabs on all of the moving pieces of any given project. That might be a really small, short project, but it could also be a complicated and long project. And depending on the type of the project and what division it is, it may call for different styles of project management. There's not really a one-size-fits-all in project management.”

— Beth Henkes is the founder of The Idea Hound.?

Project Management Styles

Project management comes in various styles. Determining the right style to use can help your team work more harmoniously. Here are some of the most common styles:?

• Waterfall: The most traditional style. Tasks appear and are completed in a sequential order that does not change. The manager tells employees the project phases and their responsibilities during those phases upfront.
• Agile: This style prioritizes flexibility, dividing goals into small steps. Companies can choose whether to reschedule or pivot on various steps depending on the project’s direction.
• Scrum: A subset of the agile style that utilizes “small teams, short development cycles, frequent communication, and designated roles to keep the project organized and on track,” according to Coursera.
• Kanban: A version of the agile style that focuses on visualizing project tasks. The visual is a board that divides tasks into columns marking each project phase.
• Lean: This style focuses on wasteful and inefficient practice elimination by mapping a strategy early and determining which processes to cut.

LinkedIn Learning course Project Management Foundations recommends brainstorming with team members to choose the right strategy. Evaluate elements like the strategy’s risk factors and compatibility with your work culture.

“As a group, read the problem statement, goal and objectives, and then begin generating possible strategies. Brainstorming should be a free flow of ideas. The point is to get as many ideas written down as possible before you begin evaluating them. Once you've identified possible strategies, you evaluate them… One way to quickly shorten the list of contenders is to check whether a strategy satisfies all the must-have objectives… The strategy with the highest overall rating is most likely your winner.”

— Bonnie Biafore is a project management consultant and educator. This quote is from the Project Management Foundations LinkedIn Learning course.?

Project Manager Certifications

Many organizations offer courses and certifications in project management to boost your skills. One of the most popular is the Project Management Institute’s (PMI) Project Management Professional (PMP) certification.

The PMI offers certifications in program management, risk management, scheduling and more. Other certifications Henkes said are growing in popularity are Agile certifications and Certified ScrumMaster.?

“A lot of people would say that people should get a PMP. I've been managing projects for over 20 years and I don’t have one personally… PMP is what I think most people would consider the gold standard, but there's also a handful of other things that fall under it that are like partial PMPs — things you do to work your way toward the PMP because the PMP requires you to have already put in a certain number of hours in projects to even be eligible to take the test and it has to be signed off on. It's a lot more of a complicated process to even be eligible to do it.”?

— Beth Henkes

Project Manager Skills

Project managers should possess strong time management, organizational, leadership and critical-thinking skills. They must also possess people skills to gain their team’s respect. This involves building relationships and trust with the team members.

“I think listening is probably your number one [way to build relationships with your team]. You need to be able to be an active listener and understand what it is that the groups need, both from you and what they're trying to get from the project so that you can figure out how to structure the project in such a way that it isn't an overburden to the people who are working on it, but that it's able to stay on track and be accomplished.”?

— Beth Henkes

Explore more

• What Is a Project Manager? A Career Guide by Coursera
• What is a project manager? The lead role for project success by Moira Alexander for CIO
• What do Good Managers do? by Lora Korpar for Get Ahead by LinkedIn News
• 7 Project Management Styles by Sean Peek for Business News Daily
• Who are Project Managers and What Do They Do? by the Project Management Institute

Meet the experts

Beth Henkes is the founder of The Idea Hound. She has 20 years of project management experience.?

Bonnie Biafore is a project management consultant and educator. She teaches the Project Management Foundations course on LinkedIn Learning.

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