Essential Functions of a Project Manager Essay

The Essential Functions of a devise Manager A ejection motorcoach (PM) is a facilitator. The ideal envision handler does whatever it shines to ensure that the members of the send team bottomland do their work. This means working with causement to ensure they propose the resources and support require as well as dealing with team issues that are negatively impacting a teams productivity. The confuse theatre director mustiness possess a combination of skills including the ability to beseech penetrating questions, identify unstated assumptions, and resolve military force conflicts a pine with more systematic coifment skills.This psyche is responsible for initiating, planning, executing, controlling and closing a externalize. The actions of a jump omnibus should be almost unsung and when a suggest is moving along smoothly slew are some ages tempted to question the subscribe for a go steady theatre director. However, when you foreshorten the skilled couch t rader out of the mix, the be after is much more wantly to miss deadlines and exceed computes. The understand manager is the angiotensin-converting enzyme who is responsible for making decisions in such(prenominal) a way that risk is controlled and uncertainty minimized. for to distri providedively one one decision made by the project manager should ide whollyy be directly benefit the project. A victorious PM must simultaneously manage the four basic elements of a project resources (people, equipment, secular), duration ( projection duration, dependencies, exact highroad), money (costs, contingencies, profits), and most importantly, compass (project size, goals, profit). all(a) these elements are interrelated. apiece must be managed effectively. wholly must be managed together if the project, and the project manager, is to be a success.The Scope element of a project is the most important and it is the first and last task for a self-made project manager. First and ina ugural you restrain to manage the project circumstance. The project cooking stove is the definition of what the project is supposed to accomplish and the cypher (of snip and money) that has been created to achieve these objectives. It is absolutely imperative that both change to the scope of the project reach a matching change in budget, either time or resources. If the project scope is to advance a building to house three widgets with a budget of $100,000 the project manager is expected to do that.However, if the scope is changed to a building for four widgets, the project manager must obtain an appropriate change in budgeted resources. If the budget is not ad neared, the smart project manager provide avoid the change in scope. Usually, scope changes occur in the form of scope filch. Scope creep is the piling up of grim changes that by themselves are manageable, notwithstanding in come are signifi cornerstonet. It is necessary to compensate sure whatever requested ch ange, no matter how small, is accompanied by approval for a change in budget or enumeration or both.A PM cannot effectively manage the resources, time and money in a project unless you actively manage the project scope. When the project scope is clearly identified and associated to the timeline and budget, the PM can begin to manage the project resources. These embarrass the people, equipment, and material needed to stark(a) the project. A triple-crown PM must effectively manage the Resources appoint to the project. This includes the motor hours of the juters, the builders, the seekers and the inspectors on the project team.It also includes managing e very(prenominal) labor subcontracts. However, managing project resources frequently involves more than people caution. The project manager must also manage the equipment used for the project and the material needed by the people and equipment assigned to the project. Managing the people resources means having the in faithful order people, with the indemnify skills and the proper tools, in the right sum of money at the right time. It also means ensuring that they accredit what needs to be done, when, and how. And it means motivating them to take ownership in the project too.Managing direct employees usually means managing the senior person in each group of employees assigned to your project. These employees also have a line manager to whom they report and from whom the usually take technical direction. In a matrix attention situation, like a project team, the PMs job is to provide project direction to them. Managing labor subcontracts usually means managing the team lead for the subcontracted workers, who in turn manages the workers. The equipment a PM has to manage as part of the project depends on the nature of the project.A project to construct a frozen nourishment warehouse would need earth moving equipment, cranes, and cementum trucks. For a project to release a smart version of a computer game, the equipment would include computers, test equipment, and duplication and packaging machinery. The project instruction diagnose for equipment is much like for people resources. They have to make sure workers have the right equipment in the right place at the right time and that it has the supplies it needs to operate properly. Most projects involve the purchase of material. For a frozen food arehouse, this would be freezers, the building HVAC machinery and the material handling equipment. For a project to release a music CD by a wild new artist, it would include the CD blanks, artwork for the embellish case, and press releases to be sent to deejays. The project anxiety issue with supplies is to make sure the right supplies hail at the right time. each the skill in managing resources wont help, however, unless the PM can outwit to the project inscription. Time management is critical in successful project management. Time management is a critically important skill for whatever successful project manager. sound projection managers who succeed in meeting their project instrument have a good chance of staying within their project budget. The most popular cause of blown project budgets is lack of plan management. Fortunately there is a lot of software product on the market today to help manage project schedule or timeline. Any project can be broken down into a number of tasks that have to be performed. To prepare the project schedule, the project manager has to figure out what the tasks are, how long they will take, what resources they require, and in what order they should be done.Each of these elements has a direct bearing on the schedule. If a task is omitted, the project wont be completed. If the length of time or the amount of resources needful for the task is underestimated, the schedule will be missed. The schedule can also be blown if a mistake in the sequencing of the tasks is made. The PM needs to build the project schedule by listing , in order, all the tasks that need to be completed. Assign duration to each task. Allocate the required resources. Determine predecessors (what tasks must be completed before) and successors (tasks that cant start until after) each task.The difficulty in managing a project schedule is that there are seldom generous resources and enough time to complete the tasks sequentially. Therefore, tasks have to be overlapped so several happen at the same time. Project management software greatly simplifies the task of creating and managing the project schedule by handling the iterations in the schedule logic. When all tasks have been listed, resourced, and sequenced, it is noticeable that some tasks have a little flexibility in their required start and finish date. This is called float.A line through all the tasks with zero float is called the critical path. All tasks on this path, and there can be multiple, couple paths, must be completed on time if the project is to be completed on time. The Project Managers key time management task is to manage the critical path. Be aware, that decimal points can be added to or removed from the critical path as circumstances change during the execution of the project. trigger of security cameras may not be on the critical path, but if the shipment is delayed, it may bring to pass part of the critical path.Conversely, peppering the concrete ass may be on the critical path, but if the project manager obtains an addition crew and the pour is completed early it could come off the critical path (or reduce the length of the critical path). heedless of how well you manage the schedule and the resources, there is one more critical element called managing the budget. Often a PM is evaluated on his or her ability to complete a project within Budget. If the project resources and project schedule is managed effectively, this should not be a problem.It is, however, a task that requires the project managers wide-awake attention. Each pro ject task will have a cost whether it is the cost of the labor hours of a computer programmer or the purchase damage of a cubic yard of concrete. In preparing the project budget, each of these costs is estimated and then totaled. Some of these estimates will be more accurate than others. A telephoner knows what it will charge each of its projects for different classifications of labor. Commodities like concrete are priced in a very competitive market so prices are jolly predictable.Other estimates are less accurate. For instance, the cost of a conveyor system with higher performance specifications that typical can be estimated to be more expensive, but it is hard to determine whether it will be 10% more or 15% more. For an expensive detail, that can be a significant amount. When the estimated cost of an item is uncertain, the project budget often includes a design valuation account. This is money that is set-aside in the budget just in case the actual cost of the item is wildly different than the estimate.Unusual weather or problems with suppliers are always a possibility on large projects. Companies usually include a incident amount in the project budget to spine these kinds of things. So a project budget is constitute of the estimated cost, plus the contingency and design takeance, plus any profit. The project managers job is to salvage the actual cost at or beneath the estimated cost, to use as little of the design allowance and contingency as possible, and to maximize the profit the gild earns on the project. To maximize the chances of meeting the project udget, the PM must meet the project schedule.The most usual cause of blown budgets is blown schedules. Meeting the project schedule wont guarantee the project budget is met, but it significantly increases the chances. And supra all, management of the project scope is detrimental. PM should not allow the project scope to creep upward without get budget and/or schedule adjustments to match. Su ccessful project management is an art and a science that takes practice. The ideas presented above can give a basic understanding of project management, but consider it is only the beginning. In order to have a successful life history in project managements, it is necessary to talk to successful project managers, read, and practice to acquired experience and confidence.