What is a Project Manager, after all?

This is a translation from my original article, in Brazilian Portuguese: "Afinal de Contas, o que é um Gerente de Projetos", published here in LinkedIn.

Although very popular and present in today's companies, many people still do not have a clear vision of the role of the Project Manager.

"Project Management" is a recent knowledge area of Management. Although projects have been part of human history since the dawn of history, its methodological, conceptual, and scientific foundations gained momentum in the twentieth century, during the 50's with the development of PERT (Program Evaluation and Review Technique) and CPM (Critical Path Method), still widely used in project management nowadays.

Since most projects involves several different business areas, with different stakeholders, which in turn have conflicting interests, the role of the "Project Manager" has been created to ensure that the project is being conducted in a way that achieves its objectives.

What does this professional do?

There are several definitions for the project manager role. I like the definition of Project Management Book of Knowledge (PMBoK) which, among many other characteristics, highlights the following section, which I consider to be the core role of a project manager:

"... is the person assigned by the organization to lead the team responsible for achieving the project objectives" (PMBoK, 5th ed.)

Although this description is real true, it is not always taken as seriously as it should be. Since in many organizations the project manager's leadership role on the project team is not formal, it is normal for him to be often considered a "assistant" to the team. Typically, in organizations that do not have a formal Project Management Office or a PMO without a strategic role, the project manager is seen as "report writer," "meeting and conference scheduler," "order picker," among other less strategic tasks.

But after all, what is the role of this professional?

I like to define the project manager with a single word: Facilitator. This may even include the activities mentioned before, but it goes far, far beyond them.

Project management demands discipline and a certain rigor in a lot of activities, since the projects are mostly strategic, have high financial investment and generate great expectation of return. They create, in essence, a conducive environment to stress, conflicts and misunderstandings between teams with different skills and roles and, consequently, pressure on the execution of their end-activities (those that "make" the project happen)

Include to that the added pressure of top management to have visibility of status, risks, budget, results, scope, timelines, deliverables, etc., etc ... Requirements changes, scope priority ... If the technical teams (those who deliver the project) have to deal with this additional burden, in addition to the specific workload, which can be changeable and subject to delays and changes for a many different reasons, we have neither deliveries nor control. Consequently, we do not have a project (or we will have deliveries that do not "fit" to each other, that is, they do not bring the expected result and, consequently, do not deliver value to the company).

Someone needs to make the lives of all these people easier and more productive. And the Project Manager is the person who must do it.

Facilitating goes far beyond schedule meetings and writing minutes. To facilitate is to be part of the project. It requires empathy and understanding, in fact, what that stakeholder is going through. Why is he always the "problem-guy"? Why does he always delay his deliveries?

The advantage of the Project Manager is that he is "out of the chaos." I often say that the Project Manager should be "the calm in the middle of the storm". He must be aware of the problems that hinder deliveries. To the external factors that, due to the overhead of the teams, nobody is looking. He must prevent these problems from hitting the team. And, if it is inevitable, the Project Manager should act as a filter. It is he one that knows the full scope of the project and for this very reason knows if the requirement that the Financial Manager is desperate to receive should be prioritized or not. It is he who must deal with the complaints of the directors and explain why the project is following in that way. Explain to the sponsor and the Executive Committee why a Project Change Request is necessary (or not).

And if a top-down request for change is inevitable (and this is part of the game and sometimes necessary), he must know how to convey it to the team, reorganizing priorities, reviewing the timeline, analyzing and updating risks, and balancing the pros and cons of strategy change. He must calmly attend to the stakeholder in despair and give him the reassurance that, no metter how bad the problem may seem, it can be solved does. And that he, as Project Manager, will assist in the solution.

It should ensure the discipline, consistency, and flow of information. But, doing this in flexibly way. And here lies the big challenge. Often, the Project Manager follows the company's methodology to the letter, with no exceptions. And then, he becomes a bureaucrat. This ends up transforming him in the "troublemaker." A mere collector and filler of useless documents that do not generate value to the project.

It seems a contradiction if we think that one of the roles of the Project Manager is to have discipline. But it is not. Being flexible does not mean being irresponsible. I think, first of all, we have to remove the obstacle from our front. Reorganize structures and resources in the face of an unforeseen or change. This does not mean "not following the methodology". But comply with it after the fire is controlled. Use it in the "aftermath operation" (also known as "Lessons Learned"). Filling in the forms and figuring out the root causes of the problems is a lot easier after we've been able to reorganize the project. After all, during the reorganization, we ended up facing a number of things that should have been done - and were not - either done incorrectly or could be done better.

Understanding the stakeholder - how he works, how he deals with colleagues, what he thinks of the project, what he's going through, both in the professional and, if possible, in private life, is also a competitive advantage for the Project Manager. Often, the insurmountable problem of a stakeholder is simple to solve, if presented with the correct perspective to the superior or to whom he depends for a delivery, for example.

Much is said about "soft skills" (those related to relationship, posture, and commitment) of the project manager. I consider them essential so that a Project Manager can execute his activities well. Creating a WBS, a timeline, analyzing risks, budgets, critical path ... are skills that are learned in courses - formal, online or on their own. But dealing with people, communicating clearly, directly and objectively, and being able to discern and prioritize different activities and points of view, is essential for the success of a project

Soft skills can be developed. Reading, talking aboute them with more experienced colleagues and, above all, practicing them are great ways to improve your ability to deal with these issues.

But above all, remember that all the skills you may have - technical or not - should serve a single purpose:

To facilitate!

 Facilitate the life of the project team and, consequently, facilitate project delivery.