The Project Manager – or PM – is the professional responsible for a project, i.e. its planning, start-up, execution, control and conclusion.
In particular, the Project Manager establishes a strategic plan that allows to achieve the predetermined objectives and plans in detail all the activities to be carried out, coordinates and monitors them.
This also implies the management of the budget and the material and intangible resources necessary for carrying out the project and the management of relational and communication flows between Event Video Production Company In Dubai team members.
The Project Manager also ensures that the expected costs, times and quality are respected and constantly monitors both the intermediate steps and the results achieved.
It is clear that, in order to carry out his task, the Project Manager must possess specific skills, competences and abilities, such as problem solving, leadership, analysis and information gathering skills.
Furthermore, to succeed in his action, the Project Manager makes use of the help of fundamental professional tools. Which? Below I suggest the most important ones to put in the toolbox!
The tools of the Project Manager
Tools dear to Project Managers are mind maps and concept maps.
The mental maps graphically represent the thoughts and connections that are established and are very useful both at the initial stage the conception of the project, both in the construction of the team and also undergoing final revision of the experience from the team.
The concept maps, however, are a graphical representation of key concepts and their relationships. They are very useful for defining the most important information and for memorizing it. They are used in the brainstorming and design phase of the project, they support the team and help them both to understand the project clearly and to memorize it.
A Project Manager cannot do without the Work Breakdown Structure (WBS), also called the work breakdown structure or analytical project structure.
The WBS allows the Project Manager to represent and organize all the activities for which he is responsible, distinguishes every single phase, sub-phase and elementary structure and also defines the associative-hierarchical relationships between each one.
And, again, the Project Manager needs two matrices and three very important diagrams for his business.
The matrices are these:
The matrix of responsibilities assignment, also called RAM, Responsibility Assignment Matrix determining who does what and helps both to define the project costs is to create awareness among the team.
The requirements traceability matrix, which establishes which project requirements must be evaluated and respected, who are the stakeholders and what they expect from the project. The identification of the requirements also allows to establish the scope of the project.
The diagrams used by the Project Managers are these:
Diagram Pert, acronym for Project Evaluation and Review Technique, is an important project planning technique, which allows you to describe the activities to be carried out and their connection in a reticular key. It is also fundamental because it allows to identify the critical paths.
Gantt chart, which owes its name to the American engineer Henry Lawrence Gantt who conceived it in 1917. It is a useful tool to describe the logical-temporal links of both the project phases and the individual activities.
Diagram of cause and effect, or fishbone diagram or Ishikawa diagram, the inventor name. It is used, especially during brainstorming, to analyze and evaluate the causes of the problems that arise during the course of the project.
Other very useful tools for the Project Manager are:
The Workflow Management Softwares , which defines the organization of decision-making in specific situations, such as management of problems that prevent or slow the progress of the project (issues), change management, approval of specific documents.
The register of stakeholders , a management document that contains information relating to the subjects involved in the project and which must contain three types of information: for the identification, for the evaluation and for the classification of the stakeholders.
The risk register, in which the Project Manager keeps track of all the risks encountered and how they have been managed, including the possibility or not that they may arise again in the future.
The problem log, where you can keep track of every issue that occurs during the project, describing every detail, starting with who identifies the problem up to resolution and the possibility that it recurs.
Moreover, the market today offers a series of management software very useful for the Project Manager’s activity, such as Suite Cardinis, LibrePlan, Bugzilla, Open Proj, Project Libre, to name just a few.
Other project management tools
In addition to other specific tools analyzed in this article, we have already reviewed some very well-known tools in the blog that can also be used in Project Management to organize your work team.
Among others, certainly the best known is Asana, a tool also available in a free version, born in 2008 and marketed in 2012 that allows you to manage and share teams and projects of all sizes.
Then we have Trello, the easy-to-use, immediate and even free project management tool. It is a sort of bulletin board where you can pin down projects and tasks in order to organize them in workflows.
Finally Toggle, the time tracking app, very useful especially if you work in Smart Working and if you need to measure the time you spend on a specific project.
