For a business, having a Project Manager leading and making sure everyone is on the same page can be critical to the success of a project. A good Project manager takes full control from beginning to end to successfully complete a project’s goals and deliverables. They hold a project together and ensure quality and objectives are met. One of the most important reasons to use project management is to align projects with business strategy.

What is a Project Manager?

A Project manager is the person responsible for the planning, directing and organization of projects making sure they are delivered on time, on budget, and within scope. They follow a project from ideation to completion.

They look at the big picture in order to set realistic and achievable budgets, deadlines and goals. The Project Manager researches and communicates with the stakeholders to come up with strategies and business objectives. They also work on identifying risks, cost estimations and setting up timelines.

Project managers also act as mediators between teams, they are the main point of contact when there is an issue and they provide every department with the resources needed to get every project done.

What are the key responsibilities of a Project Manager?

Some of the main responsibilities of a Project manager include:

• Understanding the business strategy and the purpose of the project by starting conversations with internal and external stakeholders.
• Creating a plan with the stakeholders to focus the project on reaching the goals that are set.
• Planning the work that needs to be achieved and delegate work to others, creating action plans and briefing every department to ensure everyone knows what they are doing.
• Reviewing budgets each day to ensure the project does not exceed resource allocations.
• Identifying the risks that may appear along the way and coming up with solutions, these risks can affect the budget, time and quality of the project.
• Being a motivator to the team and providing support when needed, Project managers are the main point of contact to the team and are expected to manage any issues or difficulties they may encounter.
• Overseeing everyone’s work and checking the quality, following standards.
• Supervising the work at every stage to make sure everything is getting done on time and within budget.
• Multitasking and prioritizing tasks, this improves performance as well as making a better use of time.
• At the end of the process, is important f0r the Project Manager to check that all standards and expectations are being met.

What skills does a Project Manager need?

The skills required as a Project Manager are more personal rather than technical, here are some:

• Leadership
• Project planning
• Organization and time management
• Budgeting and financial skills
• Strong communication skills
• Creative problem solving
• Motivation and managerial skills

How do you become a Project Manager?

In order to develop a career as a Project Manager, you won’t need a specific degree. Although having a project management degree would qualify you for the job, there is the knowledge obtained through professional experiences that will play a bigger part when it comes to getting a job as a Project Manager.

Courses related to business or project management are a plus, of course! However, depending on the company, any degree related to that specific subject will also be useful and give you an advantage.

Experience is key when it comes to getting a job as a Project manager, since you will have great responsibilities it is important you have gained the right amount of experience necessary to lead a project.

Some ways of gaining experience could be organizing events or running campaigns, anything that provides you with the skills required for the role such as leading a team, time management, budgeting and problem solving. You can start as junior project manager or as an assistant and build up your career from there!