A sneak-peek into the life of a Project Manager

Read, Relate and Smile if the situations described below are a part of your daily routine.

Is there any one thing that a project manager does not do in a day? 

This article presents the day in the life of a project manager which is tedious and is drowned in a stack of papers to processes; emails and tasks to complete. Few situations from the daily routine have been highlighted to lighten up the adventures and misadventures, a project management professional encounters.

Having said that, get ready to have a sneak peek into the day of a project manager.

Any other person gets up to a ringing alarm clock. He also has the liberty to put it on snooze. Unfortunately, this is not the case with a project manager. He misses out on that precious post alarm nap. The reason is incessant buzz caused by flood of emails. The regular wake-up alarm is replaced by multiple calls and notifications. At the top of that, he does not have the liberty to put those off. Ignoring these may cost the project a lot. 

A project manager has to plan his day well in advance. Thus, planning becomes a part and parcel of his life. Getting ready, having breakfast and other daily chores keep running in the backdrop. Thinking about the roadmap for the day takes the center stage.  

Every project has a preset timeline. Even a slight mishap may cause a roadblock in the project execution. There is always a risk of missing the timeline. Thus, a project manager always has to be on his toes. The planning never stops, be it in heavy traffic or while taking a call. The deadlines are over the top always. Make sure to use hands-free to take a call while driving. :-D

Projects also have a preset budget. A project manager must make sure that the budget is not blown up. Every day brings up its own set of challenges. There is always a better and different way of doing a task. A project manager spends a good chunk of his time to think of creative ways for project execution. This helps in keeping the budget under control and delivering timely as well.  

Project execution is a very demanding process. It allows almost no idle time. A project manager cannot afford to sit back and relax. He always has to get the ball rolling. A small break taken may result in missing out on something really important. This also causes a break in focus and efficiency and accuracy go down. To avoid all this, the project manager takes only unavoidable breaks.

Tight budget and timelines demand multi-tasking. A project manager has to handle multiple tasks at the same time. He has to modify the process flow to make sure multiple tasks are completed simultaneously. Thus, multitasking is also something he does day in and day out. 

A project manager has to depend upon external vendors for the smooth transition of the project. Every project needs external resources. In case of missing resources, project may come to a standstill. A project manager has to make sure that the vendors deliver the resources timely. He also has to make sure that the vendors are paid an upfront amount. This helps the vendors to source the material. Prompt payments also avoid any vendor friction which may be lethal for project viability. 

The success of a project depends upon other employees’ contributions as well. If any of the employees are facing any issue, then the project delivery may get hampered. A project manager has to take care of the employee grievances as well. He should never let an employee feel that he/she is alone. 

Finally, a very long day comes to an end. Although the end is also not so soothing. It comes with another major responsibility. The project manager has to plan for the next day. This will ensure that he gets a well-deserved good night sleep. :-D

Did I miss any highlight of your day? I’m sure I missed a ton if you want me to add anything to the above mentioned do comment below. We love to update our content.

Hope you enjoyed reading!