Project Manager (PM)

What do Project Managers do at RGB?

Project Manager is the central figure of the project which means you are not only expected to do administrative PM tasks e.g. creating timeline, progress report, etc. Instead, you are also responsible for directing the team to achieve the project goals, finding solutions, and take care of the team not only as a project resource but ultimately as a person :).

In short, there are 2 main tasks:

1. Keeps our backlog organized. Being organized means the backlog must be clearly defined, regularly updated, correctly prioritized, and delivered on time within the correct priority order.

2. Shield the team from unnecessary distractions as possible so they can focus on their own task.

Accountabilities

We believe in you, hence we got a few of the expected abilities from you as follows.

	Accountability
1.	Able to comprehend, dig the requirement detail as needed, and define a clear scope of the project to the team members.
2.	Able to create a comprehensive timeline by breaking down the task, discuss with team members to provide man-days estimation for each task, analyze dependencies, and allocate buffers wisely.
3.	Able to act as the filter between the external/client and internal team. Thus, when giving an assignment to your team members, you have to be able to elaborate on why, how, and when the task should be done.
4.	Always check the difficulty of the task to your team member. In this aspect, you better be able to put yourself in their shoes to practice empathy.
5.	Make sure the task is well documented as stored in the project management system, given a clear deadline, and assigned to the respective team member.
6.	Able to set clear priorities for each task based on business or technical impact.
7.	Able constantly tracking progress of each team member (by project management tool and daily/weekly meeting) to enforce smooth and on-time delivery within the correct priority order
8.	Able to escalate issues/inquiries to respective upper managers as necessary.
9.	Able to maintain a smooth relationship with clients, external partners, and team members.
10	Ensure the deliverable has premium quality by efficiently managing the testing process done by QA and by yourself.
11.	Able to create and maintain comprehensive project documentation and make sure it’s updated as needed.

Responsibilities and Day to Day Detail

How will your days as a project manager look like? Check this out.

	Responsibilities	Day to Day Detail
1.	Define scope of project in collaboration with Account Manager and clients.	In the planning state, the PM will collaborate with the Account Manager/Business Analyst to dig the requirements from clients. However, it depends on the project nature itself, sometimes the PM is in charge of gathering by themselves.
2.	Create, update, and monitor project strategies and timeline.	Create comprehensive timeline in a Gantt Chart style and update it accordingly if necessary Before assembling a timeline, you have to: Break down the task by yourself. Then, you discuss with the internal team if the task breakdown is right or need to add or remove something. Note: Why am I encouraging you to break the task down by yourself first? Because it will help you to understand faster about what should be done in the development e.g. the feature and the correlation with related detailed technical tasks. To do this, I recommend to discuss with the responsible tech lead, business analyst or any other relevant roles to make sure about your work. When the task list is done, proceed with man-days estimation for each task. If a team member isn't really confident with their estimation, ask them why, sometimes it’s because they never develop anything like that. If it’s the case, you can add a new task for research Lastly, arrange a timeline in a Gantt Chart style using task list and the estimated man-days. Don’t forget to add allocation, testing and bug fixing. Moreover, it’s recommended to also add a time buffer. Just in case there are some unexpected obstacles along the way, e.g. your developer gets sick or any other urgent reasons. Always ask the tech lead to make sure your buffer is just in a right amount.
3.	Manage assignment to all project members	Act as the ‘filter’ between client and internal team, therefore when assign a task from client/other stakeholder to team member, you have to: Understand the business reason on WHY the task must be done. Collect as much as necessary information from the task giver about HOW and WHEN the task needs to be done. Discuss the task with the team and ask for HOW MANY man-days estimation to get it done. Note: If the effort doesn’t match with the client's expectations, try to advise to cut some of the features and always consult with the Account Manager of this project. Lastly, create the task on the project management tool, set the deadline, and assign in to the respective team member.
4.	Ensure smooth and on time delivery within the correct priority order.	Regular follow up to team members and any other stakeholders to make sure the task is done on time in the correct priority order. The following activity can be done via daily or weekly adjustment meetings. PM also should follow up from the project management tool. Make sure team members update their task on the pm tool regularly
5.	Issues escalation to the respective managers.	If you encounter any issues, do not ever hesitate to discuss with others who might have helpful or at least constructive feedback.
6.	Manage smooth relationships with clients, external partners, and team members	As a PM, you usually will contact clients. However, it might be different with 1 project to another, you could have contact with the clients on a daily basis or just for some few occasions. If you are not confident talking to clients, you may discuss with the Account Manager because they are usually good at talking.
7.	Review deliverable before sending to clients to ensure the quality of the product	As a PM, think you are like chef head, who leads the cooks. So you have to make sure that your delivery is well tested and in good quality. You don’t want your customer to march in your kitchen and complain because they got burnt food, don’t you? In this phase, you will work with testers. What should you do with them? Coordinate with them to create test case documents. Monitor the testing progress and be available when they ask you on how the feature should work. You are the one who decides the priority of each bug or improvement, e.g. which ones need to be solved immediately or can be done later or taken as an improvement. Make sure the bug report is written properly so it will ease the developers to comprehend and to fix it. You also should try to test the feature by yourself just to make sure the critical functions are working properly.
8.	Create and maintain comprehensive project documentation	Make sure every important document in the project is written and updated properly. Mandays Estimation Timeline Maintenance Mandays Usage Report for Change Requests Initial Format Alternative Format Requirement Specification Document (if your team got an Business Analyst, then he/she will do this document) User Story/Proofhub Ticket Weekly Report Meeting of Minutes Maintenance Monthly Report Release Log

Collaboration with Program Manager (PgM)

Here is the responsibility list of Project Manager showing clearer relationship and collaboration between these PM and PgM role, not limiting but sure can be a guideline in the process: PgM's Responsibilities.