While Project Management is an important role in many companies and teams, not every organization chooses to employ one. Instead, they either have team members play multiple roles, or allow teams to operate with just oversight from upper management which, usually, means none. While this arrangement may indeed work for the organization, it is a far cry from what they could accomplish if they had a dedicated project manager.
Here are some of the ways a project manager can bring value to an organization:
Project Managers Keep Your Project on Track
Given enough leeway, a good project manager will be able to effectively plan, schedule, and staff a project and drive it to completion within a reasonable amount of time. Project managers are also able to do the risk assessment, which will help predict potential bottlenecks and looming issues that may derail a project from its schedule and require a reshuffling of resources.
Project Managers Save You (or the Client) Money
Planning and organization are the keys to getting a project done swiftly and under budget, and that′s an area where project managers excel. Proper resource management and risk assessment maximizes your team′s time and helps minimize duplication of effort, unfocused execution, and uncoordinated teamwork.
Project Managers Provide Leadership
Leadership is more than just telling people what to do and when. It′s providing an example for the team, being their defender when things go wrong, and being their cheerleader when things go right. It′s being able to make hard choices for the sake of the project and helping the team work through those choices. Project managers provide this sort of leadership for their team, increasing their effectiveness and job satisfaction and training them to be better resources for the company.
Project Managers Specialize
You could argue that senior team members can already provide these benefits without the need for a higher salary or a specialized position. But it′s this specialization that makes project managers so valuable. By shifting organizational and leadership tasks to one person, every team member′s time is maximized so that they do what they do best be it coding, drafting, or designing.
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