Project manager

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A project manager is a professional in the field of project management. Project managers can have the responsibility of the planning, execution, and closing of any project, typically relating to construction industry, architecture, computer networking, telecommunications or software development.

Many other fields in the production, design and service industries also have project managers.

Contents

[edit] Overview

A project manager is the person accountable for accomplishing the stated project objectives. Key project management responsibilities include creating clear and attainable project objectives, building the project requirements, and managing the triple constraint for projects, which is cost, time, and scope.

A project manager is often a client representative and has to determine and implement the exact needs of the client, based on knowledge of the firm they are representing. The ability to adapt to the various internal procedures of the contracting party, and to form close links with the nominated representatives, is essential in ensuring that the key issues of cost, time, quality and above all, client satisfaction, can be realized.

[edit] Project manager topics

Project management
Project Management is quite often the province and responsibility of an individual project manager. This individual seldom participates directly in the activities that produce the end result, but rather strives to maintain the progress and mutual interaction and tasks of various parties in such a way that reduces the risk of overall failure, maximizes benefits, and restricts costs.
Products and services
Any type of product or service — pharmaceuticals, building construction, vehicles, electronics, computer software, financial services, etc. — may have its implementation overseen by a project manager and its operations by a product manager.
Project tools
The tools, knowledge and techniques for managing projects are often unique to Project Management. For example: work breakdown structures, critical path analysis and earned value management. Understanding and applying the tools and techniques which are generally recognized as good practices are not sufficient alone for effective project management. Effective project management requires that the project manager understands and uses the knowledge and skills from at least four areas of expertise. Examples are PMBOK, Application Area Knowledge: standards and regulations set forth by ISO for project management, General Management Skills and Project Environment Management[1]
Project teams
When recruiting and building an effective team, the manager must consider not only the technical skills of each person, but also the critical roles and chemistry between workers. A project team has mainly three separate components: Project Manager, Core Team and Contracted Team.
Risk
Most of the project management issues that influence a project arise from risk, which in turn arises from uncertainty. The successful project manager focuses on this as his/her main concern and attempts to reduce risk significantly, often by adhering to a policy of open communication, ensuring that project participants can voice their opinions and concerns.

[edit] Types of project managers

[edit] Construction Project Manager

Construction project managers in the past were individuals, who worked in construction or supporting industries and were promoted to foreman. It was not until the late 20th century that construction and Construction management became distinct fields.

Until recently, the industry lacked any level of standardization, with individual States determining the eligibility requirements within their jurisdiction. However, several Trade associations based in the United States have made strides in creating a commonly-accepted set of qualifications and tests to determine a project manager's competency.

  • The Project Management Institute has made some headway into being a standardizing body with its creation of the Project Management Professional (PMP) designation.
  • The Constructor Certification Commission of the American Institute of Constructors holds semiannual nationwide tests. Eight American Construction Management programs require that students take these exams before they may receive their Bachelor of Science in Construction Management degree, and 15 other Universities actively encourage their students to consider the exams.
  • The Associated Colleges of Construction Education, and the Associated Schools of Construction have made considerable progress in developing national standards for construction education programs.-

The profession has recently grown to accommodate several dozen Construction Management Bachelor of Science programs.

[edit] Architectural Project Manager

Architectural project manager are project managers in the field of architecture. They have many of the same skills as their counterpart in the construction industry. An architect will often work closely with the construction project manager in the office of the General contractor (GC), and at the same time, coordinate the work of the design team and numerous consultants who contribute to a construction project, and manage communication with the client. The issues of budget, scheduling, and quality-control are the responsibility of the Project Manager in an architect's office.

[edit] Software Project Manager

A Software Project Manager has many of the same skills as their counterparts in other industries. Beyond the skills normally associated with traditional project management in industries such as construction and manufacturing, a software project manager will typically have an extensive background in software development. Many software project managers hold a degree in Computer Science, Information Technology or another related field and will typically have worked in the industry as a software engineer.

In traditional project management a heavyweight, predictive methodology such as the waterfall model is often employed, but software project managers must also be skilled in more lightweight, adaptive methodologies such as DSDM, SCRUM and XP. These project management methodologies are based on the uncertainty of developing a new software system and advocate smaller, incremental development cycles. These incremental or iterative cycles are timeboxed (constrained to a known period of time, typically from one to four weeks) and produce a working subset of the entire system to be developed at the end of each iteration. The increasing adoption of lightweight approaches is due largely to the fact that software requirements are very susceptible to change, and it is extremely difficult to illuminate all the potential requirements in a single project phase before the software development commences.

The software project manager is also expected to be familiar with the Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC). This may require in depth knowledge of requirements solicitation, application development, logical and physical database design and networking. This knowledge is typically the result of the aforementioned education and experience. There is not a widely accepted certification for software project managers, but many will hold the PMP designation offered by the Project Management Institute or an advanced degree in project management, such as a MSPM or other graduate degree in technology management.

[edit] Education, certifications and networks

Individuals wishing to obtain professional certifications may take one or more of the offerings available from a variety of organizations.

There are other graduate degrees in project and technology management, such as an MSPM. However, the majority of all project management skills may be developed through the completion of a Ph.D, D.Phil or other similar higher Doctorate.

The Project Management Institute offers the following credentials to project managers:[2]

The IPMA is an international network of national project management societies such as Association for Project Management in the UK. IPMA serves as an umbrella organisation representing national societies which offer their certifications.

[edit] Project Management training

Methods of Project Management training are very diverse. Much of the training received by most project managers is on the job training. Other sources of training include

  • University degree programs in project management
  • Business degree programs with some level of Project Management emphasis
  • Certification preparatory classes and training
  • Social media such as blogs and podcasts
  • Books
  • Seminars and conferences
  • Local group meetings (I.E. local chapters)

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ PMBOK Guide Third Edition 2004 p.12
  2. ^ http://www.pmi.org/CareerDevelopment/Pages/AboutPMIsCredentials.aspx
 This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding reliable references (ideally, using inline citations). Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (December 2008)

[edit] Further reading

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