Project Management: Responsibilities and Activities of a Project Manager

Running head: PROJECT MANAGEMENT
Project Management
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PROJECT MANAGEMENT
The purpose of the essay is to analyse the works and the responsibilities of a project
manager. There are a number of activities undertaken by a project manager in order to
successfully execute a project. One of such activities is leading the team. Leadership is
recognized by its accomplishments and effective leadership will be reflected in the task
performed (Kerzner and Kerzner 2017). Apart from leading the project it is the role of the project
manager to manage the project as well. However, there is a striking difference between the
leader and a manager. Leaders not only manage the team members but inspire them to remain
focused and have a long term goal. Not only leadership, there are a number of responsibilities of
a project manager while managing of a project. The project manager has an overall liability for
initiation, planning, design and execution of a project. Apart from that, a manager is responsible
for taking the important decisions of the project. The various aspects and the activities
undertaken by the project manager are discussed in the following paragraphs.
Among a number of duties performed by the project manager, leading the project team is
one of the most important activities. A project manager is expected to perform a number of
duties starting from direct supervision to an indirect influence, from management of hard
technical details to controlling the different issues faced by the project team (Pinto 2015).
Therefore, it can be said that the role of a project manager encapsulates in a number of ways
starting from the role of a mini CEO to someone who is responsible for successful completion of
the project to managing the project resources and project needs (Muller 2017). Apart from
leading a project, the project manager has to perform certain other essential duties and activities
which are discussed in the following sections.
While leading a project, a manager is needed to perform a number of tasks, the most
significant one being acquiring the resources of the project. The resources of a project mainly

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PROJECT MANAGEMENT
refer to the different materials and the resources which are necessary for successful
accomplishment of the objectives of a project (Sunindijo 2015). It is often seen that a majority of
the projects are under defined in their concept stage and therefore a lack of resources in the
project can be observed. There are a number of reasons behind the unavailability of the
resources. If the project goals and objectives of the project are vague, there is a possibility of
lack of resources in the project. Another major reason behind the lack of resources is
unavailability of the sponsor of the project. The lack of resources in a project can be also because
of deliberate understatement of the requirements of the project. These are some major reasons
behind the resource unavailability (Hornstein 2015). However, regardless of the reasons behind
the lack of the resources in a particular project, it is the responsibility of the project manager to
acquire the resources of the project. There is no doubt in the fact that in majority of the projects,
a budget constraint is faced along with an inadequate human resource. However, the project
managers make use of different tactics to manage the resource shortfalls which includes
negotiation. This is necessary as the resources are needed to be negotiated with the top
management.
Another essential activity performed by a project manager is to motive and build a sturdy
project team. It is a process of moulding a diverse group of experts in developing a cohesive and
a collaborative team (Heagney 2016). Team building is one of the most important aspects of
project management as it ensures completion of a project according to its aims and objectives.
Team building and motivating the team to deliver the work in a given schedule is a complex task
as the project manager needs to understand the human behaviours in order to build an effective
team (Galvin et al. 2014). The human challenges faced in the team is quite complex to manage
and therefore it is one of the most important activities performed by the project manager. In