Project Managers (What is Project Management) don't manage "business as usual (BAU)" operations, they manage projects. What is the difference?

Projects are:

• Temporary: A project has a defined beginning and ends with a deliverable.
• Constrained: There is some finite resource (Stock Market as a conversation) that needs to be managed - typically time and cost.
• Strategic: The project has a unique and worthwhile purpose - typically creating something of value.

Because a project manager's role is to manage a project, they are like a captain of a ship.

Project managers captain:

• Plan: The client knows the end goal, it's your job to chart how to get there (Moses 3).
• Communicate (Project plans make teams and clients clear): We know the whole plan, so we need to be able to communicate to the team how reach the final destination. And also to the owner of the ship about the resources we're going to need.
• Troubleshoot: When things don't go as planned - and things rarely go as planned (Choose to start or stop without guilt) - we need to be able to chart a new course and still get to the destination.
• Predict: We try our very best to mitigate disaster by looking ahead and anticipating potential setbacks or opportunities.

Citations

• Week 1 PM Essentials & Project Tools

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