What does a brand project manager do?
(and the importance of setting “normal people” expectations)
Let’s start with some caveats. Isn’t that a great way to start an article? But in all seriousness, I want to start by saying I do not speak for all project managers. I also want to say that everything you’re about to read is purely based on my (limited) 5 years as a project manager.
So, with that, I’ll start by saying that the title “project manager” is frustrating. Why, you ask? Well for one when you look it up, more often than not, you’re reading about construction. There are project managers across all industries and once you get to the correct industry you then get to the following types of project managers (this is a just a few):
- The PMP required project manager: knows all the fancy terminology (agile, scrum, kanban, six sigma, waterfall, critical path method, critical chain project management, integrated project management, PRiSM, PRINCE2, have I lost you yet? Is one of the list items fake? I guess you’ll never know until you get that required PMP)
- The program manager: the description looks the same as a project manager is it different? No one will ever know.
- The technical project manager (TPM): they do all the things project managers do (project planning, resource management) but know technical things
- The traffic manager: What a lot of people think project management actually is. How many of you think project managers just assign things out, give it a date, and peace out? Don’t get me wrong, traffic management is a large part of project management but we do so much more I promise!
- The project manager that wants to work with creative teams. Oh wait, that one’s me!!
Thanks for reading my rant. This is all to say that I feel that the title project manager has morphed and instead of listing out a description you can find anywhere else I’m going to share what I do and why I think it’s important.
What do I do?
Given that I’m writing for the Glassdoor design blog it might be a little obvious that I’m the project manager for the brand design team. Being a brand project manager does not mean I have specific experience ONLY managing brand design projects. I’ve worked on projects from implementing marketing operations systems, building out marketing analytics dashboards, creating a process between acquisition and creative teams, processes between email and translation teams. I’ve been a part of dozens of website rebuilds, failed product launches, go-to-market planning, general OKR planning, etc.
The skills that make a project manager don’t always mean specific expertise in one area. The reason I believe I’ve been able to work on the projects listed above and be Glassdoor’s brand project manager is that I do the following:
Create (optimize, recreate) process
How many meetings have you been in where someone says something along the lines “We do this every year, we should just define a process”. Or how many times has a project technically launched, but it was a nightmare to work on because the process made you want to pull your hair out?
That’s where I come in. I love order. I love lists. I love the process. I love “process” because it’s a living breathing thing. Creating a process is actually not very difficult. As you’ve completed a project, you’ve created a process, you just haven’t documented the steps. What actually takes time and project management experience is optimizing the process. I like to take a process you’ve created, and treat it as a puzzle that needs to be solved for efficiency. I look for areas of redundancy, I look for areas of improvement and I look for the human element (what would make Jille’s life easier). Every three months I like to revisit processes. I crave feedback when it comes to process because it can always be better. And the thing with process is that it evolves as teams and projects change. There are times when life just takes the order you’ve created and destroys it (looking at you 2020) and that’s when you want a project manager who loves creating processes to also love recreating processes.
Get stuff done
Let’s be honest, at the end of the day project managers are hired because stuff needs to get done and the purpose of this role is to plan projects, build timelines, manage budgets, determine resources, etc. Project managers do all of these tasks so a lot of projects are completed efficiently. This is where I am a little different than what I believe is considered a stereotypical project manager.
I am not deadline-driven. Don’t get me wrong, I like deadlines. Without deadlines, you could work on a project forever because perfection is impossible to reach. BUT in this world of failing fast, sometimes the objective of a project is lost in the urgency. Whenever possible, I like to step back and make sure we’re not just getting stuff done but that what we’re getting done matters and is impactful.
Help people deliver their best work without hating their jobs
This brings me to my last and most important part of the role. This isn’t listed as a bullet point in any project management job description but what drives me to do my job (as well as possible) is because I want the team I’m working with to shine.
Everyone I’ve ever worked with is so talented and I’m so grateful I’ve been surrounded by such amazing team members. I want to make sure I get to highlight their skills and the hard work that went into those google slides, into that Instagram post, into the email design system. The people I’ve worked with want to give 100% on every single task and I want to give them the ability to do that. If I cared just about the deliverable, I could have teams working weekends, going through 19 revisions, only to hear the initial project has been canceled. I’m exaggerating (a little bit) but my point is that the deliverable is being completed by people and when I’m managing projects I’m always thinking about the team completing the work, not necessarily what needs to get done.
Am I important?
Short answer: yes. I genuinely believe every team could use a project manager. (To be fair, I am incredibly biased). The long answer: I think project managers are important for the following reasons:
Communication
When I first joined Glassdoor I asked Jake Smith, a visual designer, how he spends his day. His answer? He spent most of his day providing status updates to stakeholders, asking questions to stakeholders to clarify a request, getting requests and trying to figure out if he can complete it, scheduling design reviews, emailing stakeholders back about feedback, reminding stakeholders to provide necessary files, oh and some actual design work. Hiring a project manager just gave you a designer back because all that communication (vital communication) is now done by me and Jake can actually do what he does best.
Efficiency
In my limited time as a project manager, I’ve gotten a lot of push back because work can still get done without me. I can’t argue with that. Work can get done without a project manager, however, the question you should be asking is how much work can get done? With a good project manager that implements time-saving processes and can take on all of the stakeholder communication, a lot more work can be completed. Capacity that didn’t exist for team members is suddenly available and more time equals more output! It’s math guys. Trust me.
Retain talent
This is going to sound like a brag, which is why I made it the last thing in this article (congrats if you’ve made it this far) but more than once someone I’ve worked with has come up to me and said: “I was thinking of quitting until you got here and set normal people expectations”. I truly believe that a great project manager should be a key player in making a team member’s job easier, more enjoyable, and successful. I promise you the reason I go to work every day is not to reach that deadline. It’s knowing I’ve made a difference in Jake, Jille, Doug, Kristy, Laura, Jonathan’s day just by making something a little simpler.
Sending my love to all the project managers out there.
