The function of project managers

They just coordinate. And they have an interest in making sure there is always something to coordinate. So, they start inventing problems that don’t really exist. We don’t have interdepartmental project managers. The people who actually do the work do that (Watson, 2014).

The function of project managers

As we already said, in a basic sense, the task that project managers should develop is to coordinate. As a project includes different parts of the company, departments and actors, it has been assumed that there must be a person in charge of guaranteeing that all the activities are developed in the right times and that each person can do their job for the teamwork achieves the expected results. Thus, a project manager is supposed to be there for assuring that the coordination is successful.

For that reason, among other things, a manager should at least satisfy two demands: first of all, they should have a wide panoramic of the company’s projects, because from there they would be able to see all the parts of the operation and make sure that everything is working appropriately; in second place, they have to be good communicators, because if they are not capable of transferring information from a department to another, the coordinating job can’t have good results. In addition to these essential qualities, they have also to be good for prioritizing time and solve problems that can appear in the development of the process (PM problems, 2019). 

Technology and project management

If we already know that communication and wide vision are essential features of project managers, we can now ask ourselves if there is the need for a person having these characteristic or if there is any technology able to fulfill them in an automatic way. The clear answer is that in the market there are already technologies that with a higher reliability can have a sight of the whole business operation and that for the very same reason can bring a higher security when coordinating tasks in a process.

Communication technologies have had such a complete development that today it is possible to find tools that can store the business model design, having it available to know each one of the activities and also the links between them and between departments. There are also solutions that can be programmed for sending notifications to people responsible of processes, for knowing when to develop a task and the priority of each one.

BPM and project management

One of the main corporate technologies, and maybe the most appropriate, is Business Process Management Software. As the name shows, BPMS is a solution that seeks to automate the business processes for having a clearer coordination. Besides, it has tools for the design of processes, from which the company have the wide perspective we have mentioned.

A close look shows that BPMS is not only a solution for process management, but a solution for managing the projects of the organization, because, like a project manager, BPM coordinates all the activities thanks to its integrative information system. And being information technology, its effectiveness is higher than manual actions that a project manager can develop.

BPM and corporate strategy

BPM also has the capacity to align all the processes in the business with the strategy of the organization, for it offers the possibility of designing the processes before the display of activities. In that design it is easy to accommodate actions and processes to the strategic planning that managers have in mind, and to the business model with which they relate to customers.

For that reason, BPM solution is perhaps the main reason for project managers being viewed as something unnecessary for companies. Compared to the efforts a project manager must do for fulfilling their tasks, the possible failures and the time they take to adapt to the rhythm of the company they begin to work in, the costs implied by hiring a manager, BPM offers a completely reliable automation of processes and business actions.

BPM or a project manager

Does this mean that we should renounce to the participation of a project manager? Actually, this is still a specific decision in each company, because each one has a different need. When the decision is to use technology for that role, BPM is the right tool, for it guarantees the reliability that managers need; but, if the decision is to maintain the participation of the manager for projects because their creativity and innovation is appreciated for solving problems, BPM is also highly recommended, because it is going to be the tool that will bring the manager the information, perspective and speediness in decision making and the adaptation of processes into business strategies and customer satisfaction.

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