What is a Project Manager?

People define project management about as many different ways as they define Web 2.0 or content management systems. 

In my opinion, skilled project managers don’t simply monitor and report on projects, they drive them.  They actively participate in the projects they manage.

They don’t just collect issues and risks, they proactively seek them out attempting first to avoid them, but ultimately to resolve issues and mitigate risks. 

They are tightly aligned to the business and executive sponsors of a project and take care to understand the context in which their project operates.

They are the project’s advocate to all constituencies including, as called upon to do so, multiple levels of decision makers.

While they act under the guidance of a business sponsor, they should function as an extension of that sponsor.

Their job may include varying degrees of coordination and administration, but that is not the core of what they do.  The core of what they do is managing, driving, and communicating - strategically as well as tactically.

At Really Strategies, a project manager is a senior person with senior responsibilities.  That’s the only thing that works with our clients.

Thoughts?

Comments

[Michael Josefowicz]

The job of a professional project manager is to make sure everyone on the team has the resources - physical and information - they need to do their jobs.

This requires having a conversational knowledge of what each sub team does and how it fits into getting it done.

Mostly it is an editing job. What I am trying to say is that we all live in an environment of a pretty low signal-to-noise ration. Too much noise, not enough signals- to focus on the job at hand. Too much "information" is just more distraction.

One way I see it is a project manager is like an intelligent RSS feed. The input is all the information in the environment. Top management, middle management, the client, the intellect workers, the production people.
The output is an edited version. Only pass through the exact information that the teams need to do the next thing. Editing. Less is most definitely more.

In addition, the great project managers are able to read all the signals that might affect the project. Often they are hidden in the unanswered email or the subtle body language at the last meeting.

The real job is producing real time actionable intelligence for the folks doing the work and the clients, both internal and external, for whom the work is being done.

[ann michael]

Michael -

That's perfect - an editor!

I always talk about how the job of a PM is simplification. It's the same concept. Take it all in, develop the intuition to understand what your seeing and hearing (like the email example you noted) and then simplify.

Simplification is a combination of filtering somethings out and distilling other things into an actionable form. Sometimes it is keeping an eye on something that might be an issue.

Thanks for your thoughtful comments!

Ann

[Project Management]

Thanx for the valuable post. Is an interesting read