What exactly is a project management? | Project manager roles and responsibilities

A project manager is a go-to person in case of any difficulty or doubt in a project not only the project team or the internal resources a project manager even deals with clients stakeholders as well as external resources involved in the project, but this is just the tip of an iceberg a project manager performs various other roles and responsibilities that ultimately lead to the success of a project.

What exactly is a project?

A project is a temporary endeavor, that is undertaken to produce a unique product or solution, here temporary actually means that it has a definite beginning and ending while unique means that the final product must be specific to. 

A project that does not have these properties can be harmful to your organization as it will be eating up your time space and other resources. 

Projects are designed and created based on various factors such as the market demand, strategic opportunity for organizations, customer requirements, market adoption to technological advancements or because of a legal requirement that has come to notice. Whatever the reason may be a project stands as the driving force of an organization.

What is project management is?

Project management is a discipline that helps you in implementing various processes methods knowledge, skills, and experience for achieving the objectives of a unique project. One thing that you will need to understand over here is project management is nothing like usual management the key factor which differentiates between these two is that 

project management has a final deliverable and a definite timeline. Where as management is an ongoing process.

Projects have always had to adapt to market changes, in past project management followed a triple constraints or iron triangle concept to bring about this adaption, it was a combination of three key components which acted as the most significant restrictions on any project.

Each of these constraints formed the vertices of the triangle with quality as the center factor.

The three core factors that made up the vertices of the triangle are-

• Time - Time is basically the total time that is required to deliver the project

• Cost - Cost is the estimate of the budget that will be required to complete the project.

• Scope - Scope is the total amount of work that is needed to be done to finish the product.

The quality which forms the center of this triangle assures that the delivered product does not compromise on the other three factors.

The iron triangle method gave way to the new constraint model called the project management diamond. In the new model, there are four vertices that are time, cost, scope, and quality along with customer expectation as the central theme.

Now the reason to include this factor is that no two customers have the same expectation, therefore, you will need to be specific about the expectation to deliver the optimum product. 

Who is a project manager?

Project managers are the ones, who ensure that the entire process of project management flows in a controlled manner, in other words, they are majorly responsible for driving a project through various phases of project management in an effective yet organized manner.

Project managers also shoulder the responsibility of the entire project scope, project team management, risk estimation, along with the various resources needed in the project.

What are the roles and responsibilities of a project manager?

Project managers are intended to have a mindset similar to that of an entrepreneur, the knowledge of project managers comprises of both technical as well as management domains. Keeping this in mind we have been down some of the most important roles and responsibilities of project managers.

1. Planning 

Planning takes place at the very beginning of the project life cycle, as a project manager you will need to plan the project to deliver the final product within the allocated time resources and various other constraints.

Poor planning leads to the failure of many projects therefore it is the duty of a project manager to define the project plan in such a way that all the stages of the project development take place smoothly and efficiently, for this the project manager should be able to understand the capabilities of each and every project team member the time. That will be required to execute every step of the project the cost etc.

Once that is done a clear and precise plan is developed to execute the various processes involved in the project development as well as to monitor the progress at the same time often the course of the projects tends to deviate from the estimated plan at this point in time a project manager should foresee the shortcomings and make the required modifications next up is leadership according to jack welt the former CEO of general electrics good business leaders create a vision articulate the vision passionately own the vision and relentlessly drive it to completion this is exactly what describes a project manager should lead his project team members not by commanding or simply listing down the tasks that each one should perform but by actually setting an example to drive the team

Through to the finish line as a project manager, you will have to make critical decisions that deal with the project development as well as the team that is involved in this process as a leader you will be accountable for any error that erupts during the course of the project, therefore, you will have to be extremely active take appropriate measures and solve the issues in time so things don't turn out of control time management is one of the most important aspects when it comes to project management clients measure the success or the failure of a project based on whether the project has been delivered within the stipulated time or not, therefore, a project manager

 has to be able to judge and set realistic deadlines for the project and also constantly communicate with the team in order to understand the progress and manage all the unforeseen issues and conflicts therefore the project manager should define all the project activities put them in right order and create a schedule with the estimated time that will be needed in order to complete each of the defined activities budget planning another important factor that deals with projects is the project cost or the amount that will be required to create the project a project budget is an estimate of all the amount that will be required for all the tasks and the activities that will take place at every phase of the project development cycle this basically includes labor costs material procurement costs and monitoring costs it is the job of a project manager to develop the project budget it is important that the project meets the planned budget along with all the other necessary factors like time requirements etc 

In case the project meets all the other deadlines and fails to be within the stipulated budget the project is considered to be a failure customer satisfaction customer satisfaction is one of the biggest priorities for every organization the activities that are involved in project management are pioneered by the end-users or the customers they are involved in the project management activities right from the beginning that is requirement analysis until the delivery of the end product now this is the reason why project managers always include customer satisfaction during planning increased customer satisfaction also guarantees the growth of the organization not just will satisfied clients bring in more and more projects to the organization but the organization will also be able to attract several other clients who are constantly looking out for reliable organizations handling project risks now it is very much obvious that when projects are under development they tend to run out of hand when it comes to time cost resources etc these issues just increase when the size of the project increases as a good project manager you should be able to foresee these issues and take appropriate measures beforehand monitoring project development 

Phases at every stage of project development project managers must be aware of all the developments that take place generally when the project is being planned the spirits of the entire team are high the problem arises when the project starts to throw issues and leads to conflicts at this stage the project manager needs to handle all the problems solve the conflicts and motivate and lead the entire team towards the success of the project that includes all factors that is time cost quality etc finally a project manager should create detailed reports and documentation are a very essential part of a project

 A project manager must be able to present comprehensive project reports which depict that the project has been delivered successfully meeting all the desired requirements and deadlines not just that the project manager should also be able to take insights from previous project reports to solve similar problems or issues in the ongoing or the upcoming projects so those were some of the most important roles and responsibilities performed by a project manager to conclude it can be said that the project cannot be completed without the efforts of a project manager project managers drive the complete project from scratch till the final delivery of the project to the customers.