A Better View of the Top Ten

In my last blog entry (here), I discussed the ten primary roles/responsibilities of a successful project manager. While I think the post did a reasonable job laying out the jobs of a PM, I wasn't fully pleased with the graphic that showed them all tied together. And I apparently wasn't the only one-- I heard from a few readers that the image didn't really make a lot of sense and could be improved upon.

Which brings us to today's blog post, where I try to do a better job of graphically illustrating the responsibilities of a modern project manager. Along the way, I also did a slight reorganization and clean-up/re-clarification of these 10 roles and responsibilities (click to enlarge):

The ten responsibilities or jobs of a project manager include: Manage Scope, Manage Schedule, Manage Quality, Manage Cost, Manage Procurements, Manage the Project Team, Manage Stakeholders, Manage Communications, Manage Changes, and Manage Risks. Sounds simple, right?

To better understand this new graphic, let's break it down into discrete pieces, starting with the topmost four, which of course are deliverable scope (i.e., the "widget") and the triple constraints of quality, schedule, and cost (a.k.a. good, fast, and cheap):

Without question, these four items are the most important responsibilities of the project manager. You have to define what the widget is you're delivering, and you have to understand how good this widget has to be (quality), how fast it's needed to be delivered (schedule), and what your budget is to create it (cost). Defining these four things up front, and then managing them throughout the course of the project's life, are perhaps the four most important things a PM has to do.

Next is the job of ensuring that the components of the widget are actually designed, built, assembled, tested, and accepted. While you as PM may not actively perform any of these jobs, you will be responsible for ensuring they take place (on budget, time, and within the quality requirements discussed above):

Procuring the components of the widget, assembling, testing and accepting them can be done in-house, out-sourced, or a combination of the two. Regardless, your job as a PM is to ensure delivery of the widget via some procurement plan that you oversee.

None of the previous things, like procurement or ensuring quality can be done without good, qualified, hard-working people on staff to perform the actual work. As Project Manager, a fundamental role of yours is to plan, hire and lead this project staff from the top down:

The Project Team is the heart and soul of any well run project. Leading these people into (and ultimately out of) project battle is your responsibility as PM.

Like it or not, there will be any number of stakeholders (internal and external) that will have an influence over and/or are affected by your project. Identifying these disparate individuals and groups, understanding their respective powers and interests, and then managing their expectations is a vital part of success as a project manager.

Stakeholders come in many different flavors, including those for, against, and neutral re: your project. The stakeholders shown in this image are just an example of the types of groups and people that you must identify and "manage" during the course of a successful project. Every project is different, and every project will have its own unique blend of stakeholders.

Communications are so important that they end up getting their own spot in this list. This category not only includes meetings, correspondence, email, reports, and the like, but also all the related things like data archiving, revision control, and even travel.

Communication management is primarily focused on two key things: comms between your project and external stakeholders, and all the internal comms that take place inside your project. Ensuring the right people are hearing and understanding the right data at the right time is the name of this game.

The last, but certainly not least, roles of a PM are the  the management of changes and risks to the project. Change always happens on a project, in one form or another. Similarly, risks always occur, and can range from those that put pressure on cost, scope, and schedule, to those that threaten the very existence of the project itself.

Changes occur nearly constantly on a project, as do risks. Identifying, evaluating, and actively managing these two things are the responsibilities of a project manager.

Hopefully this visual breakdown makes more sense then the last time-- but please let me know if you'd like to see further clarifications. As I slog forward with this blog in the coming months, I will undoubtedly go into a lot more detail explaining these ten key roles of the modern project manager. Stay tuned.

© Copyright 2015 Mark H.Warner. All rights reserved.