The Role of the Project Manager

[Music] hello my name is jennifer whitt project director of projectmanager.com many times the hardest thing we could do as a project manager is actually determine who's on first really it gets confusing with so many people on the team it's it's knowing the project manager and all the team members and the delineation between the roles sometimes in many environments people are playing multiple roles I'm sure you've seen in your own environment sometimes the project manager it can be a business analyst they can be playing part of a technical role and it's great to delineate the different roles so what we found in all of the different projects that we've been managing we've seen trends trends between project managers and actually team players so what we want to identify today are what makes great team leaders what makes exec exceptional team players they play just as critical part as the project managers and vice versa and also identify some of the project management pitfalls that actually entraps the project manager and impacts the project success so first of all what we want to talk about is the project manager what really makes a project manager a great team leader well first of all is really applying some type of best practices that's why in many areas many companies look for project management professionals project management professionals have actually devoted time to actually study learn best practices in some parts of the world PMI the project management institute has some best practices that they've been managing maintaining keeping revised and updated over many many years some people are familiar with Prince and Prince - as far as best practices but some form of best practices many corporations actually develop their own best practices but an exceptional team leader takes the time the discipline and focus to actually learn and keep up to date on best practices also training project managers who are exceptional team leaders actually invest time money and energy into keeping up-to-date on project management training whether now there's so many options today with online training self-paced downloadable webinars traditional course room training there's so many different avenues to get training for project managers but actually taking the time to keep up to date also we find being involved in conferences their project management conferences all over the world great conferences internationally even at the local level of product some of the project management institute has local chapters and so people getting together at those conferences to see not only some people across many parts of the world who they can come together and share ideas but also learn from some of the thought leaders who are out there who doing the research who are bringing back different best practices so going to conferences whether they're local or somewhere nationally or internationally and being involved in those at the conference level also having project management software see many organizations that go in and do assessments on organizations even fortune 500 large consultancies and I'm always amazed to learn that people really are not applying or using project management software and there's so many different choices out there today some teams are using nothing I have a client a global client large insurance company makes a lot of money and to learn that their team members as of today are still using paper to actually track task activities on a project it can be done however an exceptional team leader is going the distance to evaluate project management software make recommendations to the team and the companies to implement this there are many different options today also project management templates an exceptional or great team leader can also use templates begin bringing together such a time saver in effectiveness and efficiency to use templates and having some layer of consistency and actually that begins to much sure not only your project but your organization also lessons learned a great team leader applies lessons learned they're actually being conscious and aware of different projects not only that they've been on but actually actually asking their colleagues what lessons learned can you share with me about this project about this organization even these team members bringing lessons learned together actually saves time money and effort and managing the triple constraint and also they keep a project notebook so actually they can track people can come at any time and see what's happening at any level at any time on a project and again we know some areas use an effective project notebook can be can still be paper many organizations today can still use paper and now you see collaborative online software systems some some use SharePoint some use projectmanager.com many different applications today pull together a collective collaboration area where the project notebooks that can be archived so those we film a team leaders so it's not only just applying the art and the science a project manager project management but actually applying some of these practices as well so what makes exceptional team players so for team players likewise they're important they're critical for the team so they're not just doing tasks are producing deliverables but they are actually members of a team so providing input into what's happening what what's going to effect a schedule identifying and bring an input to the project manager and the team of what's happening bringing real-time information and not sitting on information and not sharing it also providing input to risk and issues many times the team the team players are the people doing the work so they're the best people to identify risk and issues and surface those and bring them up to the team and the project manager so they can be handled appropriately and real-time also providing input and status not only not only in a real-time basis but accurately really paying attention to the information that they provide to the project manager instead of just trying to save time and just throwing any status out there it's really valuable information is accurate and voicing and raising the hand on any delays or concerns again project team members their their their real time on the project and raising their hand and letting some people know of something maybe they're working on that's going to possibly cause a delay or concern to the team so instead of just working an issue working an issue and just working on it and hoping it's going to be resolved and then come up on a deadline and miss a deadline because it wasn't raised and also the tasks and deliverables really knowing the difference between tasks and deliverables it's important to be working the task but also keeping mine those tasks are actually being done to produce a deliverable so those are some of the things that we feel like makes an exceptional team player it really takes a combination of great team leaders and exceptional team players to make the the project more effective efficient more successful so now that we know what makes a great team leader and project manager now we know not to fall into the PM pitfalls that we've seen so many times before so if you need project manager software tools tips techniques visit us at projectmanager.com

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Views: 488,896

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Keywords: project, management, project manager, project managers, team players, manager, team, project management, project management video, video

Id: Vkd7JGl0-90

Length: 8min 21sec (501 seconds)

Published: Tue Nov 22 2011