D.P. T-Shot Reference Blog

Project management duties vary depending on the discipline, size of the project, complexity and duration but there are several duties which are common to all projects. Project managers must understand the project they have been assigned, must develop a structure and team for the project, must refine the assigned guidelines as required and prepare the work breakdown schedule.

While project managers are not required to understand in depth each step being performed by each team member, they must understand the overall project, the stated goal or goals, and all guidelines assigned to the project. In essence they have to understand the goal they wish to accomplish before they can begin to develop a plan to get there.

One of the project management duties are to develop the overall structure and team that works best for their particular project. Several factors influence this such as the discipline, the time constraint, and team size. Ultimately the project manager wants a structure and team that allows the project to be efficient and successful.

Analyzing the environment and refining the guidelines are often duties that occur throughout the beginning stages of the project. A project can change as information is collected, forecasted results realized and goals realigned or refined therefore the project manager must understand how these changes alter the project and the team and make changes as necessary.

Preparing the work breakdown schedule is another duty that falls under the project manager. The work breakdown schedule is a list of small working components that are used to move step by step from project beginning to successful completion. These steps are broken down into the smallest component which makes sense for the particular project and can number as few as ten to as many as several thousand depending on the depth and scope of the project.

Some projects will require these duties to be handled directly by the project manager, while other’s require delegation as their complexity and interrelations increase. Regardless of project size understanding the project, developing a structure and team, refining the guidelines and preparing a work breakdown schedule are common project management duties that project managers face.