FinTech Project Manager vs Product Owner 2
Who is a Project Manager?
A project manager is responsible for leading a project from the beginning till the end, which supposes the planning of an entire project, its execution, delivering the project on time, and being in a budget also managing the people and resources.
She or he facilitates to team work to ensure that the desired business value is being delivered and the work is carried out in the correct order.
Important to mention that a project manager should be able to ask questions, resolve conflicts, understand unstated assumptions, manage people, time, quality and budget, in short, keep in mind iron triangle.
Let’s consider what the major responsibilities does a Project Manager role imply.
All these responsibilities are universal and applicable to all project managers over the life cycle of a project.
For instance, Planning and Defining Scope.
During COVID19 time and post-COVID19 time, a proper planning with a risk management have the significant meaning for facing project deadlines as many projects fail due to ineligible planning.
Because the project manager defines the scope of the project, determines the available resources (peoples, accesses, software, hardware etc.), estimates the time and financial commitments.
Time Management is essential: A project can be defined as successful or failed depending on the factor whether it has been delivered on time.
Meanwhile a project manager should set realistic deadlines and ensure that the team adheres to it.
In general the main PM’s activities to follow are:
- Define an activity;
- Sequence the activity;
- Estimate a duration for the activity;
- Develop a schedule accordingly;
- Maintain the schedule.
Ensure customer satisfaction: Justify stakeholders’ expectations with deliverables is vital and ensure that stakeholders are satisfied with the results.
Monitor Progress: a true project manager monitors and analyses the team performance and expenses and undertake effective measures to do so.
However, maintain a constant communication with the stakeholders and obtain a regular feedback and report them back with the progress is a main work for PM.
Cost Estimation and Budget Development. Example from real life: the project was partly failed because it was delivered in time to the stakeholders but if it costs much more than the budget which was declared.
True PM should keep in mind, the given estimation at the beginning of the project and monitor the expenses according to the planned budget.
Sometimes the Project Manager should adjusts the figures accordingly and keep the budget stable, otherwise immediately report about hypothetically possible additional charges.
Project Risk Management.
“Risk management focuses on the negative — threats and failures rather than opportunities and successes.”(Harvard Business Review). In common words, risks are potential problems which have an equal likelihood of happening and not.
All possible Issues and problems should be collected in a Risk Register document and develop risk mitigation strategies. When one of them or few arise in project the PM should immediately follow the pre-defined risk mitigation strategy for particular issue.
Final reports and other important documents.
These duties are two very important tasks for the project manager, they document all the projects requirements that have been fulfilled, during the entire project, that includes what has been done, who were involved, deliverables and goal which were reached, and how it would have been improved in the future.
Further on BergDigital.CH
