In Episode 49 of Razorleaf’s Stay Sharp podcast, Why Do You Need a Project Manager?, co-hosts Jen Ferello and Jonathan Scott welcome Razorleaf colleagues Melissa Bussard and Jeff Meyer, both of whom bring years of experience managing services projects at Razorleaf and elsewhere. The foursome takes a deep dive into the role of the project manager (PM), including why manufacturing organizations should have one running their projects, what PMs handle throughout a project, and more.
What is Project Management?
Jonathan begins by suggesting that in the simplest terms, project management is keeping a team of people on track to accomplish an objective—understanding that the “team of people” typically means individuals from both the customer and the services provider. Jeff agrees, saying, “It’s basically an overview, taking a look at a project from a high level, being able to drive down and communicate the status to all the shareholders or stakeholders, and having a proven methodology or a hybrid methodology to actually report on project status.” Or as Jen says, PMs are “the glue that keeps things together.”
Managing Resources on Both Sides
Melissa goes on to point out that beyond coordination, project management is also about helping foster relationships. “A project manager is going to be able to identify when additional communications are needed, help to foster those communications and meetings,” she says, “and try to smooth the road, keep people on the path, and get to that destination.” Jen compares the role to chaperoning a group of five-year-olds at the zoo. PMs have to count heads, point people in the right direction, and, Jen adds, “Continually shepherd them and say, ‘Make sure that you get this done this week because there are a number of dominoes that are depending on that being done.’”
Resource management is extremely important, Jeff notes, including ensuring that the team gels well together and can handle any issues that arise. Both Melissa and Jeff make the point that the job isn’t only managing the resources provided by Razorleaf (or any service provider), but also managing customer resources and even vendors. Resources also have to be considered side-by-side with the other fundamental responsibilities of the PM: time and budget. It’s not just “Do you have the right resources all along,” Melissa says, “But do we have the right resources on either end to achieve the time and budget constraints that we have?”
What PMs Do
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The meat of project management activity is typically tracking and managing the project’s time and budget, aka hours and effort. While a lot of people look at project management as checking a box on a schedule and sending bills, Melissa says it’s also asking, “Are we getting the work done within that time and budget? Do we have the right resources? Do we have enough resources? Are we achieving what we need to with the time and money we have?” Jeff adds, “And are you actually delivering what you thought you were going to deliver with the hours that you predicted?”
A final, critical piece of the PM’s job, Jeff says, is communication, especially reporting. He explains that he sends out one source of truth, a project dashboard, every Friday. “Everybody sees exactly what’s going on, not only the budget, but resource availability—and it’s one place. It’s one artifact that shows them everything they need to see.” This kind of reporting is one facet of what Jonathan sees as a big part of the PM role: that of interpreter between the technical side and the business side—areas of a business that don’t often cross-streams.
Communication also means having good relationships with all members of the project team, especially whoever the owner of the project is at the customer. Sometimes this can be the customer’s own PM, which Jeff appreciates because “there has to be transparency [throughout the project], and there’s probably more transparency between the PMs than anywhere else.” But sometimes the customer simply has a single point of contact who takes responsibility for the project. “They might not be a PM,” Jeff says, “but they have to be a pretty high-level stakeholder that can drive up escalations through their company so that they bring the right resources in, because we can’t do that.”
Learn More About the Value of Project Managers
The full podcast contains more discussion and details on a variety of topics, including whether “time” means effort or duration (Hint: Jeff says both), what tips Jonathan took from this podcast to improve his services projects, why it’s important to manage the ever-challenging “people” aspect of projects along with everything else, and more.
Check out the full conversation in Stay Sharp Episode 49: Why Do You Need a Project Manager?, and join us each week for a new podcast.
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