The Roles and Responsibilities of a Project Manager

Today’s businesses have found that project managers have become more popular and valuable to the organizations industry. A project manager is a leader who specializes project management. They have a responsibility in completing simple tasks up to the most difficult projects. A project manager can arrange the project into three simple stages; planning, organizing, and controlling that will assist them in the completion of an assignment or project. Project managers work most industries for example; construction, telecommunications, computer designs, architecture, or aerospace. Project managers are the backbone of resourcefulness, applying knowledge, skills, and tools, enabling them to meet the project requirements in the most efficient and proficient way (University of Phoenix, 1997).

The project manager is the point man or leader, they are in charge of the whole project from the beginning to the end, identifying, and resolving issues to ensure completion is on time. Businesses are adopting project managers more every day due the improved financial savings from increased production, employee satisfaction, and reduction in costs. Successfully completing a project is finishing the requirements of the project on time, under budget, and meeting with customer satisfaction. The significance of acquiring a project managers is that they can tell about how long the project will take and approximately how much it will cost. In addition, they handle risk assessment issues in clearly identifying uncertainties. The consequences of not acquiring a project manager can be rather brutal, it allows opportunity for competitors to advance or even move ahead in the industry (University of Phoenix, 1997).

Planning
In the planning stage the project managers is defining the objectives and developing ideas on how to accomplishing those objectives. By the cooperation of the organization the project managers along with a representative or sponsor can identify and define the project objectives. In addition, the project manager plans out the project on how it is to be. Often enough the project manager will recruit team members for developing this portion or phase of the project. When selecting team members use the most experienced in their fields and not necessarily with the same area of expertise. The more diversified the team will ensures effective brainstorming that will lead to different perspectives and create more solutions. Next is to examine with the team what is already known and what is not known. This will help in prioritizing and assigning the right tasks to the respective team member (Chen, 1997).

Organizing
In the organizing stage the project manager is identifying of it resources, starts organizing, and began to assign tasks. Project manager will delegate assigned task promoting teamwork and inspiring team member promoting synergy. The organizations resources mostly include employees and financing. The project manager determines what tasks are to be assigned to what member and to how much to be allocated for each assigned task. For this the project manager may elect to assign team to help delegate authority to oversee each task. Finally the project manager must have preparation for any possibly conflicts or differences by keeping everyone focused on the goals or tasks assigned (Chen, 1997).

Controlling
In the controlling stage it is about the monitoring of progress of each task and comparing it with the projects schedule or the allotted time. In this stage is the time for measuring performance in case of any changes or performance issues, the project manager can directly and expeditiously find a suitable action in correcting for it. This is the period for making any adjustments to the plans if necessary to remain on schedule. If assigned tasked falls unexpectedly behind schedule, it is the project manager’s responsibility to resolve and to get it back on the scheduled time frame (Bushman, Mellissa. Feb2, 2007 para. 4).

Skills
Project managers come diversified with multiple skill sets to be effective. They need to possess a range of skills in addition to the general management skills. Certain specific or technical skills obviously will be require for the job at hand. However, they are also require additional skills, such as analytical thinking to possess the understanding of the project. They must also have leadership capabilities to inspire their team members. In addition can communicate clearly, carry abilities for problem solving, and to time management skills, knowing how too effectively and manage the schedule (Bushman, Mellissa. Feb2, 2007 para. 6).

Conclusion
The project manager has become a very successful and popular entity inside today’s business world. The project manager has an array set of skills to include planning, organizing, and controlling. They play a very important part in furthering the financial success of any small businesses or large corporations. In addition to these skills and responsibilities, project managers employs available resources to complete their project in the most proficient way possible. The project manager is the leader and plays a key role in project management influencing the completion of each assignment. They live for managing projects and deadlines, they are the managers of today’s business world.

References
Bushman, Mellissa. (2007 Feb 2). The Responsibilities of a Project Manager. Retrieved from http://voices.yahoo.com/the-responsibilities-project-manager-180828.html Chen, M. (1997). The role of a Project Manager. Retrieved From University of Phoenix Library Management 521 Week Two