The project manager is a new profession, which is just beginning to gain distribution in Russia. Previously, the management of all tasks, events, projects fell on the shoulders of the head. This significantly loaded people in senior positions, and also reduced work efficiency. Therefore, in the wake of increasing the effectiveness of managing the organization, a specialty “project manager” appeared. This employee can be part of the company or be invited by a specialist.
A project is a set of measures to achieve a specific goal in strictly defined conditions: terms, quality, budget. A project manager is a specialist who is responsible for its results. In contrast to the functional manager, the project manager in each project faces a unique goal requiring an innovative approach and a new solution. The project manager’s leadership ends as soon as the idea is realized. The complexity and specificity of this profession is that the project manager is forced to implement each new project with a new team, which implies building working relationships from scratch. As soon as the project is completed, a manager who is not part of the organization’s staff can remain temporarily out of work.
Each project is a test, a challenge, therefore, the profession of a project manager is well suited to ambitious, confident and purposeful people. It involves constantly changing living conditions.
The project manager must have a mandatory set of professional
characteristics without which his work will not be effective. For such a leader, knowledge in the field of general management is important, since he, first of all, manages people. These skills are especially important in conditions of an unstable team, the members of which need to be united in a short time and direct their efforts to achieve a common goal. The specificity of the profession is expressed in the special knowledge of projective management. In this area, a large number of practical solutions and techniques have been accumulated that every such manager needs to know. Project management requires competent handling of many categories, such as time frames, finances, communications, conflicts, personnel, risks, security, supplies. The work can concern any industry, therefore the project manager should be aware of all industries, i.e. have at least a broad outlook and be able to quickly fill in the missing knowledge if necessary.
This is a unique profession. Management requires a person to have special personal qualities. Not everyone, having learned the theory, will be able to become a good manager, and especially a project manager. First of all, it is a sense of responsibility and a willingness to bear it. The project manager has a personal responsibility for everything, he alone is responsible for the activities of the entire team as a whole and individual members. Unforeseen situations often occur in the work of the project manager in which it seems that collapse is inevitable. But the manager must at all costs achieve a positive result and prevent the project from failing. Focus on results is the second necessary quality for a manager. Of course, a leader must be a leader. People should follow him, without hesitation, to believe and trust him. And to achieve this, communication skills and proper
negotiation skills are needed
. A project is a huge system of various interactions. In order to keep abreast of the state of each of the parts of the project, the project manager must be able to think systematically and quickly make optimal decisions even in the absence of information.
Project management is difficult, but interesting. This is a job that is not for everyone. But one who considers himself an energetic, ambitious, courageous person will be able to find success in this area of activity.