The dirty little secret of project management is that adults don’t need much adult supervision. In theory, this means a single project manager should be able to manage several projects at once.
So why do so many organizations invest so much in project management and still have out-of-control projects? The disconnect between theory and reality lies in all the work that keeps project managers from, well, managing projects.
Project managers routinely get bogged down by a litany of busywork, like updating schedules, handling documentation, managing communication, and scheduling meetings. These daily tasks pile up, keeping project managers from focusing on their main responsibility of keeping teams on-task.
So should we just cut out all the meetings, documentation, and schedule updates? Absolutely not! In project management, the minutia matters. Dotting all the i’s and crossing the t’s is the very thing that determines whether a project spins out of control.
The problem arises when leaders ask project managers to do everything. One survey found that 90% of companies have projects that are too complex for one individual to take responsibility and arrive at solutions on their own. The key is to deconstruct the roles of project management and redistribute them to those with the appropriate skills and pay to fulfill them.
After all, why pay project managers as much as $150 an hour to do paperwork? They might make more than an administrative worker, but (at the risk of stating the obvious) the administrative worker is better at doing administrative work! So having a project manager focus on those tasks isn’t just financially inefficient: It’s less effective.
Once project managers are freed up to focus on the most important and least time-consuming part of their jobs, they become supercharged for success.
The Six Roles of Project Management
At the end of the day, project managers are ultimately accountable for the success of projects overall, but that doesn’t mean they can’t delegate responsibilities for each of the roles. The following six roles combine to form the basis of control for projects:
Coordination
Administration
Scheduling
Tracking
Leadership
Expertise
Project management is only as strong as its weakest link. If one link breaks, the project is untethered. No amount of scheduling compensates for budget overruns, and excellent leadership won’t make up for a lack of technical knowledge and expertise within a project.
Let’s go through each of the roles from the bottom up:
Coordination
Almost every project experiences a hiccup or two, and it’s at this time when the rubber will meet the road. If project managers don’t receive the support to coordinate resource demand or prioritize resources, the project can quickly fly off the rails.
Cost, time, and scope will be the three constraints project managers face with every project, and balancing all three takes careful coordination. Should “scope creep” occur, budgets and timelines will eventually become issues. The project coordinator (or resource manager) can forecast potential schedule and money issues. Then, they can either delegate solutions to the team or push issues up to Leadership to determine the correct course of action.
Administration
Administration makes up the foundation of project control. No amount of talent or technology can overcome unforced errors like frequent miscommunications or lost documents.
Project administration will come into play almost daily. Project managers need help preparing action plans, collaborating with clients, interfacing with internal teams, maintaining open lines of communication, relaying information, providing project documentation, fielding financial queries, setting expectations … the list goes on and on.
Without any administration, projects will be dysfunctional, and if the project manager is tasked with doing it, they will got bogged down. Organizations with a dedicated project administrator will see their productivity skyrocket relative to the investment.
Scheduling
One of the most common causes of project failure is poor planning, so proper time management should never be underestimated when it comes to project success.
Half of project management offices don’t have the technical capability to use sophisticated project scheduling tools. No matter the size or scope of a project, project managers need this support for identifying resource requirements, estimating demand, and defining task deadlines.
Tracking
Tracking, or data analysis, is increasingly necessary for comparing actuals against given project plans and then adjusting where necessary. It’s also critical in evaluating the requirements against an organization’s resources and interpreting the information to maintain alignment with overall business objectives.
Ideally, project managers and data business analysts will collaborate on the same project team. With technology shouldering much of the analysis, many project managers need these experts nearby.
Project trackers are also responsible for developing status reports and dashboards that can be shared up and down organizations. These give project managers and stakeholders insight into both individual projects as well as the comprehensive portfolio.
Leadership
Management skills are essential to project management success. The right person will have the technical skills needed to create, monitor, and revise project plans to ensure everything comes in on time and on or under budget. But effective leadership skills are even more important.
Project managers will never carry out projects on their own. The entire job is to lead project team members through the process, which requires the skill and ability to hold others accountable, enforce project constraints, run project status meetings, and serve as the liaison between executives and their teams. Without oversight and guidance from up top, your project immediately loses stability.
Expertise
Project managers must seek knowledge and input from subject matter experts who can keep an initiative’s wheels turning. That means knowing who to go to and when to keep a project on schedule.
Some basic knowledge simply allows for more accurately estimating costs, timelines, and resource requirements. It’s also helpful in providing direction, understanding whether the project is feasible, and answering questions as they come so momentum can stay consistent.
Conclusion
The six roles above won’t necessarily represent six different people. Perhaps one person or a group of people will have different combinations of these skills.
The important takeaways from the C-A-S-T-L-E Model are:
- All six roles need to be present on a project team in some form or fashion for it to be managed properly, and
- It is unrealistic and inefficient to expect the project manager alone to possess all of these skills and responsibilities.
Once an organization learns the constituent roles and acknowledges the unique and critical importance they each provide, the organization can focus on ensuring the project manager has all the support they need to manage their projects effectively and efficiently
For more help on navigating the challenges of project management, contact us today.
