Common myths about project managers

When you take on the role of project manager you become a liaison and a leader. As a project manager is your job to guide the structure, quality and of course the budget of any project whilst at the same time considering the interests of everyone involved; client, organisation, stakeholder. As a project manager you wear a lot of different “hats”, and there can be a lot of misconceptions that occur about what you do and how you do it.

Parallel project training have put together just a few of the common myths about project managers.

Anyone can manage a project

It can be rather galling when you have gained all your project management qualifications to find that some managers believe that anyone within an organisation can take on the role of project manager. Many people believe that there is really nothing technical about the position, and all you need is to be organised and able to manage a team of people. Whilst this is true in part there is so much more to being a project manager. Taking a project management qualification will give you everything you need to be able to pull together all the appropriate skills and utilise them to effectively manage a project on a budget and with timescales that need to be followed. It will also help you to deal with any issues that arise during the project.

A project manager requires technical knowledge

Whilst having a technical knowledge in an area that relates to the project can be helpful, it is certainly not a necessity. This is that reason that many projects have SME’s with whom the project manager will meet on a regular basis in order to ask their advice. In order to be an effective project manager, the skills you really need are an ability to communicate, document things and of course the necessary interpersonal skills. These are not necessarily the skills that someone technical will have.

Documentation isn’t important

This is a very common myth, not only with business managers and executives but also with other members of your team. The problem with leaving documentation to later because it is seen as unimportant is that later is always filled with other things that need doing and so documentation slips further and further behind and of course once a project is completed everyone moves to a new project and then its too late. It is important to do your documentation as you progress and any project manager who knows what they are doing will know this.

The best methodology is Agile

There is not really a best methodology, just different ones that each have their own strengths and weaknesses and it is important to keep an open mind about which one will work best for your project. Once you have learned all about the project and have all the facts you will be able to determine which methodology will be the best one to implement.