Are you a new project manager or thinking about becoming a project manager and are wondering
what are the responsibilities of a project manager? Well, I got you covered. Stay tuned in
this video because we're going to check it out. If you also need help to build your project
management skills, I have you covered. I have a free webinar, which goes through the five
fab fundamentals of project management, really the critical things that are going to help you
be successful. Things like charters, et cetera. You're going to have to check it out to get the
details, but it's highly worth it and it's free. I placed the link under this video just for you.
Hi. If you're new here, welcome. My name is Adriana Girdler, and you've landed on the best
practical project management channel out there. I am definitely biased, but I'm so
glad that you're here, and I hope you subscribe because it really helps our community grow. Now,
if you're interested in the responsibilities of a project manager, well then let's get to it.
Planning the project. This is a no-brainer, and if you are even considering project management,
then you have to realize you need to plan for the project. What is the project plan? What
is everything that you and your team needs in order to be successful? Now, when you do project
planning, particularly in the initial stages of your project, you want to create a baseline
project plan. This is really what are all the baseline items you need that you know as of today,
this moment, in the beginning stages of your project that's going to assure your success.
The cool thing is you use that baseline and then your project plan grows from that. But it's there
to set as a benchmark so that you understand where you are moving from. Now, how do you do
this? I have some great videos for you. Go to the YouTube search bar, put Adriana Girdler WBS. That
acronym is a work breakdown structure, which teaches you how to create that baseline,
and then you link your scheduling with it, too. Project planning, really,
really important responsibility, and definitely check out my other videos on this topic, which
is really important for you as a project manager. Risk and change management. Now, before I hop into
this tip, I want to remind you to don't forget to grab your seat on my free webinar that I told
you about earlier on in this intro of this video. Definitely check it out. Don't forget the link is
below this video. Now, risk and change management. This is something that really can sometimes get
lost in the shuffle of trying to execute tasks in the project, but is actually a really critical
responsibility for a project manager. Risk. Why risk? Because, guess what?
Every project has risk, and if you don't do some sort of risk identification and then
put together some mitigation and contingency plans, then your project can derail really,
really quickly. Why change management? Because everything you're doing is about change. You're
probably implementing a new product, production line, activity. It's usually something that you're
delivering that is usually new or upgraded to an end user, and so you want to make sure that you
thought about what are the things that you have to ensure your stakeholders are aware of so that they
can successfully manage this new item that you are going to be delivering from a project perspective.
That becomes really important. Understand those elements. Risk management and change management
is really only going to make everything so much easier for you, your team, and ultimately
the end user when they get your final deliverable. Firefighting. Darn. I'm telling you, I wish every
project went perfectly and according to plan as per the benchmark that you created that baseline.
It doesn't. It doesn't. Why? Because in the beginning stages of all projects,
you don't have all the information, and as you progress on your projects, you start to get more
information and more items that are changing things and you have risks and all that other
fun stuff that feeds into the project plan, and basically into your project. What happens? Then
you are scrambling in order to ensure that you're keeping things on scope and on time and in budget.
What do you do? You firefight in order to do that. Now, the nice thing is, if you have a solid
project plan, it's not like you can deviate too much from your plan, but you
still have to firefight to keep things on track. Firefighting is a big part of that responsibility.
It can be stressful, but I don't want you to get so stressed out. Because if you're firefighting
100% of the time, then I would challenge for you to say to yourself, "Did I properly
plan? Do I have the right people? Why is it that everything we planned is not coming to fruition?"
That's a bigger issue and something you have to investigate as to why that's occurring.
But firefighting when things pop up throughout a plan and you have to put it out, the key is you
just want to out a little fire. You don't want to put a big fire. So do not ignore any issue
that is in your mind's eye or in the back of your head. You're going, "Hmm.
Doesn't feel right." Follow your instinct and put out that little fire, because I promise you,
it probably is a little bit of a ember burning and you don't want it to go out of control.
Evaluating performance and progress. Okay, this can sometimes be hard for individuals,
particularly if you are new to the role of a project manager or even just
new to the role of managing people, because that's what a project manager does. Yes, we have a scope,
time, and budget, documentation, all that other stuff, but we're managing people. Our team,
subject matter experts, to execute their tasks in a fashion that is respectful, that is aligned with
our expectations, and that it's ultimately getting to the end result. If the world was perfect,
everybody would follow your ways of working because they signed up on the charter,
they all agree to everything, you've set it up perfectly, and people just do what it is that they
said they would do. However, that's not reality. Now, at times you are going to have to pull
someone aside. You are going to have to talk about their performance. You are going to have
to find out how their progress is and you may have to course correct them. That can be an
uncomfortable conversation, but it's not meant... It shouldn't be one that you ignore either.
Some cool techniques is if you go to YouTube search bar, Adriana Girdler charter,
you're charter becomes a powerful document that you're going to use in your kickoff that allows
for you to set up all those expectations and have people sign off on it. That's a really easy
tool to use that takes away any emotional charge when you have to talk about people's performance,
because you just have to say, "Hey, we agreed to all of this, you signed off on this document,
and now all of a sudden it's not happening. What's going on and is there any roadblocks
I can help you remove?" Do that privately between the two of you. If you find you're still
not getting where you need to go with, let's say, a particular person and you've done your
due diligence and you've been respectful, you're going to have to escalate it, FYI. But again,
that is the role of a project manager. Documentation. Surprise, surprise. This should
not surprise any of you if you've watched any of my videos and if you know anything about what I
talk about when it comes to project management. But again, this could be your first video,
so let me talk about documentation. Yeah, a project manager's responsibility is to ensure they
have really good documentation and that they're organized. Why is that so critical? Because you
want to eliminate assumptions, you want to make sure everybody's clear on expectations,
everyone understands what they're supposed to be delivering on. You're not going to get that
clarity by just verbally saying it, because people will forget. It's through the documentation and
the management of the key pieces of documentation that you're going to be using as a project manager
that is going to help ensure that. So yes, document away. Please, please, please document.
Timely communication. Now, as a project manager, it is all about communication.
Now, I feel like I say that in every tip. It's all about this. It's all about that. Okay,
let me clarify it. It's an important part of your project management roles that you need to have,
is timely communication. You're trying to keep everyone ahead of the ball, so to speak. Is
that right? Ahead of the ball. Ahead of the curve. Karina, what is it? Ahead of the...
Anyway. Let me bypass this, okay? A little bit of a brain
fart. Can I say that on YouTube? But anyway. You want to ensure that people understand
what's expected of them. The communication is just clear so if something changes, you do that timely.
Even after meetings when there's agreements. Ensure that you do your summary notes and you
send them out immediately. Waiting I find, the longer you wait, the more people forget
versus if you, in a timely way, let them know the things that they need to be aware of,
it just helps them to do a better job. So communicate, communicate, communicate. Don't
do it last minute. Do it as much in advance as possible, particularly if someone needs
to be on an agenda or you're trying to deliver something. Don't ask at the last minute. Again,
just be timely. Be organized. Tie it all into all the other stuff that you do as a project manager.
Team inspiration and motivation. What? Why are we even talking about things like that? Well,
let me tell you. There is a really important reason why. Your project team does not report
into you. They report into a manager who grades your performance, et cetera. So, as a result,
how do you get everyone who, by the way, has other projects that they're probably working on,
other responsibilities, along with your tasks that you have to ensure get completed? Well, that's
through inspiration and motivation. You want people to be excited about working on your project
and working with you, generally speaking. Have their back, have everything ready for them,
remove any roadblocks so it makes working on the tasks for the project that you're all working
on together much easier to execute. You do that through motivation. You inspire them.
Be the lead. If you have expectations of them, make sure that you emulate those expectations.
If you expect things in a timely fashion from your team, you make sure you give them stuff
in a timely way. That's just really an important way to motivate people who don't report into you,
and that's something you're going to have to learn how to do well as one of your responsibilities.
Facilitating meetings. Okay. If you're a project manager or you're getting into the role or even
if you're a team member, you know it's all about meetings. Right? You have your kickoff meeting,
you have your sponsor meeting, you have your brainstorm meeting, you have steering
committee meetings. Hopefully you're not doing update meetings, but we can talk about
that at a later date. You are doing resolution meetings, you're doing requirement meetings,
you're getting teams together in order to get approvals done, so you have approval meetings.
That's how we get a lot of things done collectively as a group. We individually may be
doing our tasks, but then we have to come together as a team and ensure that everyone's in agreement,
and those are usually done through meetings. So you better learn how to facilitate meeting really,
really well. Sometimes we're not taught that. I got your back covered. I've told you before on my
Slay Project Management course, if I haven't already mentioned it before, is I actually
talk about meetings and how to run really well-run meetings and the templates to do that
as part of project management, because it is so integrated into everything you do. So I got your
back covered. Definitely check it out just so that you can have some knowledge around it. But
meeting facilitation, pick up any skillset you can. It's just going to help you be smoother
in the execution of the things you need to do. Now don't forget to save your seat to my free
webinar on those fab five fundamentals that I was talking about much earlier on in the introduction
of this video. If you stay tuned, great. It's under this video. Check it out at the link. It is
free, and at least that's going to help you as a new project manager.
Just some really of key fundamental stuff. Until the next video, see you later.