Who is a project manager?

Fairytale

Once upon a time project manager catches golden fish.

"Please, release me and I will grant your wish."

"Ok, I want a bridge that will take me anywhere I can think of..."

"This is impossible" she replied.

"So in this case, please give me 2-3 sentences about who PM is easy for everyone to understand."

"Ok, so how long should be this bridge?"

As Wikipedia says - A project manager (PM) is a professional in the field of project management. Project managers have the responsibility of the planning, procurement and execution of a project, in any undertaking that has a defined scope, defined start and a defined finish; regardless of industry. Project managers are first point of contact for any issues or discrepancies arising from within the heads of various departments in an organization before the problem escalates to higher authorities, as project representative. So it's almost Superman?

But do we still need project managers? All of our team members already participated in a lot of trainings related to project management. In our organizations we have team managers, scrum masters, product managers, business analysts, etc. So why and if we still need project mangers? And who in real life is project manager?

For management

Someone need to track all of changes, decisions, risks, prepare reports. Project managers spend a lot of time on documentation, which is required usually by all stakeholders. Most of us don't like documenting, but it needs to be done. Even if you are not preparing all of the documentation yourself you, as a PM, are responsible for it. So, you need to find your own way to do simple, clear project report.

And for sure you are representative of your team/company. Your work will have huge impact on how you will be perceived as a partner.

For customer

In this field PM role is a little bit different. Of course you are a partner, but also ambassador of both sides - you need to represent interests of your company but also you need to show, customer point of view in your organization. You need to show what is really important for the customer and you need to understand what it is! So you need to try to walk in their shoes.

Sometimes customer will treat you like a whipping boy. Someone needs to be blamed and it will be you, not your team. From my experience, internally you can discuss, but on customer level there is only one responsible, which is you.

Another very important role represent by PM is a translator. He translates customer needs to your team, product managers and others. On the other side PM needs to translate dependencies to the customer and try to convince him to some solutions. In this regard, a lot depends on the words you use for translation.

For team

In projects nothing is possible without a team.

In this case for your team you for sure need to be someone between mentor and concierge. You need to support your team in growth. If they need any additional trainings, knowledge - it is your responsibility to find solution. Maybe it will be some knowledge transfer session or training. It doesn't mean, you need to have this knowledge - you just need to arrange it to your team.

PM also should be a bodyguard. From both - internal and external pressure. With your team, even if you are working with those people only for this one project, you could discuss and make a deep analysis with looking for a real root-cause. But you can't blame any of team members in front of the customer. Remember, in each case you are the responsible one.

You should be like a priest - your team should try trust you and confess every sin. In this case you are able to act and prepare for some issues. Only in this case your risk register will include the right solutions. Without being bodyguard on every situation, team won't trust you.

Yes, I think that now, more than ever we need project managers. Their main task is to arrange communication between all stakeholders, especially nowadays. They should gather all of the parties together and allow them to work on successful solution. And they should communicate expectations and opportunities for project stakeholders.

The role is cross-functional and very challenging. Also very interesting. You don't need to be a technical person to manage technical projects, but you need to listen the people and focus on understanding their expectations.

All photos on open license by pexels.com