The Role of a Project Manager

1.2P The Role of a Project Manager

(1.2P.P1)

A new employee in the company mailroom noticed an older man sitting in the corner, sorting mail, weighing packages, adding postage and doing other simple jobs. He asked his supervisor who the man was.

"That's Joe." the supervisor said. "He has been with the company for 35 years and is getting close to retirement."

"Really." the new employee replied. "And he's been in the mailroom the whole time?"

"No, he left a number of years ago. But he asked for a transfer back - after spending several years as a project manager."

On the surface, the role of a project manager should be easy to describe. In fact, from a textbook perspective it probably is. But the challenge to understanding project management roles and responsibilities is that they can be different from company to company. So, although the TenStep process will provide an overall perspective of the role, you still need to determine what the role of a project manager is at your company or in your organization.

General Definition (1.2P.P2)

In general, the project manager is responsible for the overall success of the project.

Process Responsibilities (1.2P.P3)

The project manager is 100% responsible for the processes used to manage the project.

What does it take for the project to be a success? If you follow the TenStep Project Management Process, you first must define the project and build the schedule and budget. This is where the project manager's responsibilities start. If the project begins and you find out later that you are not clear on scope, the project manager is the one who is accountable. If your project is executing a poor schedule, the project manager is accountable.

Defining the project means that you understand and gain agreement on the overall objectives, scope, risk, approach, budget, etc. It also includes defining or adopting the specific Project Management Plan that will be used to manage the project.

This does not mean that the project manager must do all this work himself. There may be an entire team of people helping to create the Project Charter and schedule. However, if something does not go right, the project manager is accountable.

Once the project starts, the project manager must successfully manage and control the work, including:

Managing the overall schedule to ensure work is assigned and completed on time and within budget
Identifying, tracking, managing and resolving project issues
Proactively managing scope to ensure that only what was agreed to is delivered, unless changes are approved through scope management
Proactively disseminating project information to all stakeholders
Identifying, managing and mitigating project risk
Ensuring that the solution is of acceptable quality
Defining and collecting metrics to give a sense of how the project is progressing and whether the deliverables produced are acceptable

Remember, this does not mean that the project manager physically does all of the work, but he must make sure it happens. If the project has issues or scope creep, or faces risks, or if expectations are not set correctly, the project manager is the person held accountable. For instance, if there is scope creep on the project, the project manager cannot say it is the client’s fault. The project manager is the person responsible for managing scope on the project.

To manage the project management processes, a person should be well-organized, have great follow-up skills, be process-oriented, be able to multi-task, have a logical thought process, be able to determine root causes, have good analytical ability, be a good estimator and budget manager and have good self-discipline.

People Responsibilities (1.2P.P4)

In addition to process skills, a project manager must have good people management skills. However, the project manager is not 100% responsible for people. This responsibility is shared with a functional manager. This is one reason project management is hard. The project manager must achieve results with a team of people that do not report functionally to him. On the other hand, managing people is certainly an important aspect of project management and it becomes more important as a project gets longer and requires more staff. These people management responsibilities include:

Having the discipline and management skills to make sure that everyone follows the standard processes and procedures
Leading people so that they willingly follow your direction. Leadership is about communicating a vision and getting the team to accept it and strive to get there with you
Setting reasonable, challenging and clear expectations for people and holding them accountable for meeting the expectations. This includes providing good performance feedback to team members
Possessing team-building skills so that the people work together well, and feel motivated to work hard for the sake of the project and their other team members. The larger your team and the longer the project, the more important it is to have good team-building skills
Communicating proactively using good verbal and writing skills, and good active-listening skills

The project manager is responsible for the success of the project. If the team has poor morale and is missing deadlines, you need to try to resolve the problem. This is people management. If team members don't understand exactly what they need to do and when it is due, then you are responsible. This is process management (managing the schedule).

Multiple Roles (1.2P.P5)

Depending on the size and complexity of the project, the project manager may take on other responsibilities in addition to managing the work. For instance, the project manager may assist with gathering business requirements. He may help design a hardware component or write some of the project documentation. Project management is a particular role that a person fills, even if the person who is the project manager is working in other roles as well.

A project manager might manage the project for 45% of his time, perform business analysis for 25%, work on design for 15% and write documentation for 15%. This does not mean that one of the responsibilities of a project manager role is to spend 15% of his time on design. Instead, it just means that the project is not large enough to need a full-time project manager. The project manager spends the rest of his time in other project roles such as business analyst, designer and technical writer.

Depending on the size of your projects and the way your company is organized, a project manager’s time may be allocated in one of three ways:

A full-time role on a large project. (blue circle above)
Project management responsibilities for multiple projects, each of which is less than full time, but the combination of which adds up to a full-time role. (green circle above)
Multiple roles on the same project, each of which requires a certain level of skill and responsibility. On one project, for instance, he may be both a project manager and an analyst. (yellow circle above)

Responsibilities in a Matrix Organization (1.2P.P6)

The most prevalent organizational structure today is some form of matrix structure (see 2.1.7T Project Organization). The matrix organization results in the most efficient use of people resources for a company. However, one of the challenges of the matrix organization is that the team members are assigned to the project for work (full time or part time), but the resources report to someone else from a people management standpoint. This can mean that it is harder to get the resources to do the things you need to have done and there is sometimes a sense that team members would rather do what their functional managers request, rather than what the project manager needs. In this type of a structure, there are still a number of proactive things you can do:

Although the team members do not functionally report to the project manager, their work on the project should still be input into their overall performance review. So, you can try to hold people accountable by making sure they understand that you will be providing performance feedback into their review. This should also be reiterated, and agreed to, by the functional managers. If people are not meeting their deadlines, perhaps it is a combination of direct feedback to the person, as well as the feedback from the functional manager, that is needed.
There are project management techniques and processes that should be utilized. First of all, if the availability and performance of the team is in doubt, you should raise this early as a project risk. As part of risk management, you need to put a proactive plan in place to make sure that this risk is addressed.

When people miss major deadlines, you may need to raise an issue and perform issues management. During issues management, you again look for the cause of the problem. For instance, they could be missing deadlines because they are being pulled from your project to do other work, such as application support. If so, this may need to be addressed in some way. They could be missing dates because the initial estimates were too low. If so, then that needs to be addressed another way. They could be missing dates because of performance problems. Again, that needs to be addressed a third way, with the help of the functional managers
Make sure your team members are communicating proactively with you. In many cases, it’s not the fact that people miss their deadlines that gets the project manager frustrated; it’s that they don’t give you warning. For instance, if a team member has a deliverable due at the end of the week but he gets pulled into a three-day resolution of a production problem, he needs to let you know so that you can take any appropriate actions. If a team member misses his deadline but does not tell you the reason or warn you ahead of time, he is not managing expectations as he should. By the same token, the project manager needs to communicate proactively as well and make sure the team understands due dates and expectations. The project manager must also communicate proactively with the functional managers and make sure they know when there are resource-sharing issues or people performance issues.

Matrix management involves a complex and delicate balancing act between project managers and functional people managers. The project manager always has limited people management authority in these situations. Yet it is possible to complete your projects successfully. There are many project management processes and techniques that can help. You should also make sure you utilize the project sponsor. After all, it is his project. The sponsor can help you generate the urgency and focus, and the sponsor can also influence the functional managers, if necessary, to make sure that the people are available as needed for the project to be successful.

Having Project Management Accountability but not Responsibility (1.2P.P7)

In some organizations, the project manager is accountable for the success of the project, but does not have the right level of responsibility. You are typically asked to manage a project utilizing people when you do not have direct management responsibility over them. You may also find that your ability to resolve issues is hampered because you are not high enough in the organization and you must often rely on more senior management for help. In other instances, you may find that your ability to be innovative and flexible is constrained by organizational policies and inertia.

All of these situations can be cause for frustration. One way to deal with them is to define roles and responsibilities as a part of the Project Charter. This can help set and manage expectations. For instance, if you have no budget or expense approval authority, note that up-front, along with a process for expense approval. That way, if problems do arise later, everyone knows who has the right level of authority to resolve them. For most project managers, the frustration level is not caused so much by a lack of power but rather by ambiguity. If the project manager does not have the authority, it is important to know who does, and what process is needed to gain action.

Determine How Many Projects One Project Manager can Manage (1.2P.P8)

You hear of project managers that manage multiple large projects and small projects. The question arises then as to how many projects can be effectively managed at one time.

The answer, perhaps surprisingly, comes down to simple math. First, we need to make an assumption that project management typically accounts for 15% of a project’s effort hours. In other words, if a project is estimated to take 1,000 hours of effort, you should allocate 150 hours for project management. Some companies allocate 10% of hours to project management, while others allocate up to 20%, but 15% is a reasonable rule of thumb.

Once we have that basic assumption, you can look at the sizes of projects you need to manage. You apply your project management percentage and then you should be able to determine how the number of projects that one project manager can manage.

The best way to envision this is to look at some examples.

Project A, 12,000 hours of effort, one year duration

The project management time is calculated at 1,800 hours (12,000 * .15). The 1800 hours represents the typical amount of hours a person will work in one year. Since the project is also one year, there is a need for a full-time project manager. The project manager probably cannot manage any other projects since this one will absorb all of his time.

Project B, 6,000 hours, one year duration

In this case, you will need 900 hours of project management time (6,000 * .15). Since the project is spread over year, the project will need less than 20 hours of project management time per week. Therefore, it is possible for a project manager to manage two projects of this size over a one-year timeframe.

Project C, 1,000 hours, three months … 150 hours of project management
Project D, 2,000 hours, eight months … 300 hours of project management
Project E, 500 hours, two months … 75 hours of project management

In this case, Project C will need 12+ hours per week, Project D will need 8+ hours per week and Project E will need 12+ hours per week. One project manager could manage all three projects since the total project management effort is around 32 hours per week.

Project F, 20,000 hours, one year

In this case, the project needs 3,000 of project management time (20,000 * .15). This represents more hours than the project manager can work in a year. This would be a reason to use a project administrator or team leaders to take over some aspects of project management. For example, a project administrator can help update the schedule, consolidate status reports, schedule meetings, and do other administrative tasks to help the project manager.

Of course, the project management time does not occur in a straight average number of hours per week. There will be some peaks and valleys of time requirements on each project. However, this is the overall model you would use to determine whether a project manager has too many, too few, or just the right number of projects to manage.