Hey and welcome back. Earlier you learned more about
the responsibilities of a project manager. And while it might seem like a lot to keep
track of, it's important to know that you, as the project manager won't need
to do everything on your own. Let's discuss the role of
the project manager and how that role relates to other
roles within the project team. It's easier to hear the term manager and
immediately think of your boss. But a project manager is not
often the direct manager of the people working on a project team. Here, we're discussing the project
manager as someone who manages the tasks of a project. But what does that really mean, right? Well, although you might have a few
teammates working with you on a project, you're probably not their day-to-day boss. With the help of your team,
you can get a lot more done together. Everyone on your team will have their
own set of roles and responsibilities. And you'll come together to ensure that
everyone is able to do their part to advance the project. Each person will be an expert on their
portion of the project, but no one will be an expert on every aspect of the project,
and honestly, neither will you. For instance, the graphic designer
will focus on graphic design, but probably won't be an expert
on copywriting. Similarly, you'll be an expert on project management,
but may not be an expert on marketing. Here's another way to think about it.
Imagine that you're organizing a camping trip. You might be the person in
charge of planning the trip, but that doesn't mean you have to be a camping
expert. Maybe you've never been camping before, but your partner grew up
spending every summer by the campfire. In that case, you might assign them the task
of picking out the right number and style of tents for your group. So, in this example, you are planning
the trip by giving your partner the job of finding the right
number of tents and the right size tents to make
sure everyone is covered. You aren't doing the research or
the task yourself, but you're making sure that
things are getting done. It's similar in the workplace.
As the project manager, you won't be an expert in every
project role, and that's okay. As we said, your job isn't to
be the expert on everything. Instead you're responsible for
guiding your team and making sure that they have the support that they need
in order to complete the project. So how does a project manager go about
doing that? Let's discuss using a few more examples of the required responsibilities
you might find in a job listing. First, you'll need to hold all
team members accountable for their assigned tasks. Managing tasks
will help you hold your team members accountable by giving them ownership
over specific pieces of the project. Second, you'll need to ensure that
issues and risks are tracked and visible, and
be able to establish escalation paths. Now by escalation paths, I mean that you
should know how you will communicate risks to the right people at the right time. Third, you'll need to understand and help teammates adopt the right workflows
and project management styles. As the project manager, you'll likely have
the best idea of which style is best for the work. It's your job to ensure that
the team adheres to that style and the other systems in place. And fourth, you'll need to collaborate
with other teams at the organization to meet the requirements based on project,
scope, schedule, and budget. In other words, a project may
affect not only your team, but other teams at an organization,
as well as, say, the marketing or the finance team. So you'll need to work
with those teams to ensure that everyone is happy with the project outcomes.
You'll learn more about working with other stakeholders in a later course.
Catch all that? Let's recap. You learned that a project manager isn't
always the direct manager of each member of the project team. Rather, they're
responsible for guiding those people and ensuring they have the support
they need to complete the project. Now that you have a good sense of
the way that a project manager fits into the project team,
let's move a little bit ahead, where we'll discuss the types of skills
that a project manager needs to succeed. Meet you there.