What actually is a Project Manager?

[whatisupwiththis]

My job title is Project Manager. But I think that's an actual profession with qualifications and stuff, and I'm not one of these? I'm a manager, so I manage a team. And my team does an ongoing project for a client, an outsourced task to do with pensions. I've tried to find out what a project manager actually is though and the job descriptions as well as descriptions of project management qualifications just sound like a load of buzz words and I haven't got a clue what the job or qualification would involve. What is it please, with concrete examples?

I was a PM. I always described myself as a ‘professional nagger’. My job was to get people to do things they didn’t want to do. And in a timely manner, to the required standard and within budget.

I was a project manager and I would sum it up by planning the timeline for whatever it is that needed to be done, allocating the work and tracking this. Stakeholder management and communication and managing risks and budget to ensure all ok.
Quite often nagging people to get shit done!

You track project timelines and budgets, meet with team members weekly to discuss their progress, prepare reports, meet with the client…

You make stuff happen, however you can, within the parameters that you have of quality, time and cost. Bizarre you do this but don't know what a project is.

Thanks everyone but I still need examples? What do you mean by project? What kind of things is it? That's what I meant by concrete examples.

A project is a piece of work you deliver in an agreed timescale with an agreed budget and a defined scope.
It could be building a building, installing some new software, refurbishing a shop, designing and rolling out a new mobile phone ap, or making a meal.

I’m one… fuck knows. 😂
I kid of course. It’s not just tracking stuff that needs to be done, it’s identifying what needs to be done.
A project is always some kind of change. My job is to understand what the intended outcome of the change is, to speak to all the relevant people / organisations involved or impacted by the change and to establish what the requirements are in order to implement the change to meet the intended outcome.
This will start with a series of meetings with the relevant people to make sure everything that is going to be needed has been listed. Then, these requirements are costed against the budget, and adjusted according to must haves and nice to haves.
Next, there’s usually some kind of graphic showing the breakdown of products/ deliverables that will go into making the final product/ deliverables.
These can then be assessed to work out how long each deliverable will take, and how many people will be needed ( different methods of doing this depending on whether time or resource can be flexed) Then the parcels of work can be costed again etc.
The tracking of activities (and yes, nagging) happens when you know exactly what you are delivering.

What do you do in your day to day job as a PM, OP?

The difference between a project and just business as usual is that a project is a finite activity, which delivers some kind of change. It has a beginning a middle and an end.

It's one of those job titles like administrator that could mean anything, usually it's middle management level

Why do you “need” examples? Have you been asked by your employer what you’re doing?

Well no, not really. It’s a profession with a set of universally understood techniques and methods. The term might often be used wrongly though.

A project is time bound which differs from day to day work which is not time bound. An example would be building a hospital (a really big project). Another example is an evaluation of a government service.
A project manager needs to monitor and manage a series of tasks that achieve the aim of the project. They need to allocate tasks to team members, monitor timelines, issues, risks and give their client (if there is one) and boss updates on progress.
If your colleagues' work is ongoing I don't think it would be classed as a project.

More importantly do you use Gantt charts?

I think I'm not a project manager then, in the way it's usually meant. My job is - whatever back office tasks are done at a bank, we're just doing some of them instead as an outsourcing company. And I managed the team who's doing that.
I'm still curious though, if projects are finite how are you in continuous employment with one company? Are we talking about specific sectors that always have finite projects on the go on a rolling basis such as building?

This is really detailed except I still don't know what you do by this description 😅 what are the actual projects?

Have you been asked to justify your position OP? Hence the “need” for examples?

So it’s not specific projects with a start and end date?

it’s ongoing back office admin you manage

A project manager is someone who manages projects.

Projects can be as small as 'arranging a set of 5 workshops' so over and done in 3 months or as long as 'managing the implementation of a system' that might take 20 years to complete.

My Dbro is a project manager within an industry. He visits the site, identified what needs doing - for example a new security door needs fitting. He then gets the people responsible for each part of that to organise it within a timescale and budget.
Then he organises the next Identified project.

a project is just a set task within a larger organisation sometimes.

I’m not a project manager but work closely with them at an NHS trust. So examples of projects could be introducing a new computer system, opening a new site, implementing a new way of working, closing a service, building a new website. As pp said, it’s something involving a change which has an end point.

"need" in the sense that I need specific examples otherwise I won't understand it

I’m not a PM but am the operational lead on projects in my dept so sit on a whole host of projects to actually deliver them.

@whatisupwiththis in my org there are continuous projects and we employ a small team of PM’s to support these but sometimes need to bring in PM’s as contractors if there are too many big ones.

Projects can be small and sometimes you don’t have a separate PM and that role is done by an operational person so it may be that is what you do. It doesn’t have to be a separate role and it doesn’t always need a complex gantt chart or a particular methodology.

But is someone asking you to provide them with examples?

why do you need to understand anything more than the job you are doing - if you and your employer work happy how you’re doing it?

what are you doing in your day to day? Given you are a PM?!

I work as a project manager in civil engineering. So on a rail project, or building a tunnel, new road or airport runway, I would coordinate a large number of people to deliver the project (bit of railway, bridge, tunnel, road) to an agreed timescale and budget, making sure everyone is safe, the infrastructure works, and the company makes a profit.