If there’s a project, it needs a manager

Believe me, it’s true

In high school and college, I was almost always the one managing the group project. It was one of those, this is fine, I can do this, much like me being a copywriter.

At my first job there wasn’t a project manager — we generally moved things along as a group, and things got done.

But then, I got a project manager.

When I joined Ansira, they had been making a major effort to have every medium to large project have a project manager. It was weird — I was used to doing it myself and I had to learn to trust that others would do it (I mean, I liked managing in college, but it’s still a trust game that you usually lose).

Our project managers:

• coordinated schedules and created timelines— the entire project was scheduled on our calendars from brainstorming to a final review meeting. (this is so incredibly time consuming, especially in a large organization)
• created agendas for the meeting and heavily enforced the agenda (meetings were to the point and productive)
• defined next steps (brought so much clarity to what was happening next)
• checked in with you a day or so before your step was due (things didn’t fall through the cracks)
• kept track of hours spent (and thus the budget)
• took notes during meetings (probably my favorite thing about them)
• cleaned up the notes for clean, easy to read meeting recaps (pure gold)

Basically, I got to do my design work and show up to meetings scheduled for me.

It was awesome.

This is not about hand holding. This is not about forcing people to get their work done. This is about creating the structure and environment for people to do the work they were hired to do and not other things — and not only does it get done, it gets done more productively.

So after you hire that copywriter, make sure you get a project manager.

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Ashley Crutcher is now the Director of Experience Strategy at InterVarsity located in Madison, WI. She tweets at @ashleyspixels and enjoys cuddling with her furkiddos, crocheting/knitting, ringing handbells, and thinking too much about everything.