Welcome back. I hope you enjoyed that last
story because for me, it's always helpful to hear about someone else's career path. Maybe you even noticed a few parallels between their
career path and your own, or you felt inspired to pursue a specific area of
project management. So far we've discussed
the types of project management roles
you'll be qualified for, and how to search for them. Earlier, we discussed
the value that project managers bring to their teams and
their organizations. Now let's learn more
about the roles and responsibilities of
a project manager. Earlier you learned that project management is the
application of knowledge, skills, tools, and techniques to meet the project requirements and achieve the desired outcome. How does that actually happen?
That's where you come in. Project managers usually
follow a process that involves planning and
organizing, managing tasks, budgeting, and controlling
costs, and other factors, so that the project can
be completed within the approved budget
and timeframe. Let's break these
down into examples of responsibilities that you might find in a job listing for a project
management role. We'll start with
planning and organizing. One responsibility
that falls under the umbrella of
planning and organizing is making use of
productivity tools and creating processes. During the planning and
execution of a project, you might need to
use certain tools and develop processes to improve information
sharing across the team; you may also need to create
plans, timelines, schedules, and other forms of documentation to track project completion, and you'll usually
need to maintain those documents throughout
the entirety of the project. The next task is budgeting and controlling
costs, and other factors. As the project is underway, changes to the plan and budget are bound to come up. Believe me. This will require you to
monitor and manage the budget, track issues and
risks as they arise, and manage quality by mitigating
those issues and risks. One way to do this is by removing unforeseen
barriers that come up. Now, by barriers, we mean things that can get in the way
of project progress. For example, if your teammates lack the resources needed
to complete a task, you might identify that
issue, or barrier upfront, escalate the issue
to a stakeholder, and work to secure the resource so your team can move forward. Another huge piece of the project manager's
role is managing tasks. A project task is an
activity that needs to be accomplished within a set
period of time by you, your team, or your stakeholders. Keeping track of tasks
is a great way to help manage the team's workload and ensure that things
are getting done. Keeping track of tasks is also a great tool
for demonstrating progress to people outside the immediate team,
like your stakeholders. Back when I was a program manager in Student Development
here at Google, one of our goals was to create pathways for students
who identify with communities that are underrepresented in the
technology industry. A large part of my day-to-day responsibilities
involved working with two separate engineering teams to create our
technical curriculum. To manage the tasks
associated with this project, I created separate
project trackers for each team that outline the
vision for the curriculum. These trackers kept both teams in the loop about the
timeline for delivery, the categories and
subcategories for work, and the team members
assigned to each task, I also made sure to update our stakeholders every
step of the way. By actively managing tasks through out the
project lifecycle, I was able to keep tabs
on everyone's work and efficiently
inform stakeholders, which allowed us to achieve our project goal
with minimal issues. Nice job. Now you should
be able to describe the roles and responsibilities
of a project manager. Coming up, we'll discuss a project manager's role
within the extended team, including how to work
alongside the people tasked with executing the
project. Catch you in a bit.