The moment an employee is assigned responsibility for a project, they know: Something extraordinary begins—from tomorrow onward, their world will never be the same!

Does the Project Manager Know Their Responsibilities and Tasks?

How does a project manager know what's expected of them?

What determines their success or failure?

And what decides whether they'll be celebrated as a hero or condemned as a failure in the end?

Well, finding answers to these questions isn't simple. In some organizations, project managers have clear guidelines and best practices to follow, while in others, expectations remain frustratingly vague.

Ideally, a Project Management Office exists to define project roles, assign responsibilities, establish rules, and outline procedures.

When top management elevates this framework to a company standard and aligns their evaluation criteria accordingly, project managers can inform themselves and act appropriately.

This brings us to a crucial point:

The responsibilities and tasks of project managers must be specifically defined in every company, as well as the responsibilities and tasks of other project members.

While agile project management methodologies offer clearly defined roles with corresponding tasks and responsibilities, traditional project management approaches (IPMA, PMI, etc.) remain much more open to interpretation.

The framework conditions provided by the Project Management Office aren't always optimal for efficient project management and successful projects. All too often, these guidelines contain gaps or leave too much room for interpretation.

The greatest challenge for project managers arises when management has expectations they're unaware of or objectively cannot fulfill. The situation becomes particularly critical when the project performs poorly and fails to meet its objectives. In such cases, the blame game begins, and all eyes turn critically toward the project manager.

However, assigning responsibilities and tasks properly isn't just about the project manager's fate. It's about the project's destiny and perhaps even the company's future.

When expectations placed on project managers exceed what they can realistically deliver, yet the project's success depends on meeting those expectations, failure becomes inevitable.

I hope this introduction clarifies why properly defining a project manager's responsibilities and tasks is absolutely critical.

Drawing from my experience and observations, I'd like to present some suggestions as to which responsibilities a project manager should take on under all circumstances.

I hope my arguments convince you. You can assess the approaches in your environment that create favorable conditions for the success of projects — and thus of project managers.

These Responsibilities Should Be Assumed by Project Managers:

Responsibility for Project Objectives

At the top of my list comes responsibility for project objectives.

They are, after all, the very reason the project exists.

If objectives aren't met, the project fails to deliver the impact for which it was initiated. Against this background, it's logical that project managers must be responsible for achieving project objectives.

But beware!

Project managers don't have the task of achieving project objectives! That must be done collectively by all project participants.

What exactly does responsibility for project objectives entail?

Let's take a look at the primary project objectives that play a role in every project:

* Performance

* Cost

* Time

This is the magical triangle of project management. The term itself indicates that it represents a compromise.

Time, money, and performance are interdependent. Greater performance typically requires more resources and time, and vice versa. You can also buy time with money by deploying more resources, which naturally must be paid for.

The project manager's responsibility is to ensure that the compromise, established as the project objective, represents a realistic compromise.

To accomplish this, project managers must:

* Be convinced that all three objectives can be achieved simultaneously.

* Have a concept of who can realistically contribute what toward achieving these objectives.

If the assigned goals are not all achievable at the same time, then it becomes the project manager's task to negotiate a new, but then feasible, compromise with the relevant stakeholders and bring it to a decision.

Sounds logical, right?

However, it's anything but trivial and places high demands on project managers.

They need extensive experience to assess what's realistic and what isn't. While they'll gather information from their team, ultimately they remain responsible for judging whom to believe and where more might be possible than team members trust themselves to deliver or are willing to commit to. Similarly, they must recognize when the team might be taking on too much and making unrealistic commitments.

It requires extraordinary courage to tell stakeholders (who are often top managers) that not all wishes can be fulfilled.

Company culture plays a crucial role here. In a trust-based culture, project managers find it easier to propose realistic compromises to stakeholders. In cultures dominated by fear and power, one should consider whether being a project manager in such an organization is even desirable.

Let's take a look at the secondary goals. In addition to the three main objectives present in every project, there are also additional, often project-specific objectives.

Project managers bear responsibility for ensuring all these objectives are clearly defined and communicated to all project participants, from stakeholders to team members.

Responsibility for project objectives consequently includes monitoring the achievement of these objectives throughout the project. For this purpose, project managers use metrics that help them recognize when problems are emerging. When this occurs, it becomes their task to initiate organizational measures to remedy the disruption or solve the problem.

Since primary project objectives have three dimensions, KPIs must naturally monitor all three dimensions. This requires metrics that show the maturity level of performance development, metrics that show budget expenditure, and metrics that measure project progress over time.

Responsibility for the Project Plan

It is the project manager's responsibility to assign the right tasks to all project participants at the right time.

For this, they must manage the project plan.

What does managing the project plan mean?

First, they must develop a complete plan detailing which activities are necessary, which resources are required, and what dependencies exist between activities.

On this basis, they then direct the respective project members.

The project manager is the one person in the project who precisely understands what must happen for project objectives to be achieved.

In reality, the initial plan won't work exactly as envisioned. That's why I say they must manage the plan. This means they must direct the necessary activities to make the plan work. When they recognize that deviations from the plan are necessary or beneficial, they must adapt the plan.

I interpret responsibility in this aspect extremely strictly. The project manager alone decides when and how a plan is adjusted. For this purpose, they naturally gather information and decision recommendations, just as any good leader does when decisions need to be made.

Too often, I experience project team members urging the project manager to change the plan because it doesn't suit them. They want more time, they demand additional prerequisites, and so on. This is toxic.

I want project managers to bear sole responsibility. They dictate how things proceed and bear responsibility for ensuring it works.

Every project team member contributes to making the plan function.

This creates potential for conflict. Therefore, another role is needed to mediate between the project manager and the project team—the Project Management Master role. (Feel free to come up with your own name for it. In the agile context, the Scrum Master is positioned quite similarly.)

I'll describe the responsibilities and tasks of the Project Management Master's in a separate article, so subscribe to the newsletter to avoid missing it.

Responsibility for Risk Management

I consider it self-evident that project managers are also responsible for risk management. This is, after all, a prerequisite for increasing the probability of achieving project objectives.

Since project managers are responsible for achieving project objectives, they should also be the ones who best understand what could go wrong. Having recognized potential risks, they must ensure measures are taken to minimize these risks and make their occurrence as unlikely as possible.

For this purpose, they use classic risk management methods as extensively described in project management frameworks.

To briefly summarize, here are the tasks they must personally complete in risk management:

* Identify project risks.

* Evaluate project risks regarding the severity of impact and the probability of occurrence.

* Develop risk mitigation measures or backup strategies for critical risks.

* Incorporate risk mitigation measures into the project plan.

* Verify implementation of measures.

* Immediately activate backup plans or initiate recovery activities if risks materialize.

Stakeholder Management

The final responsibility involves continuously informing project stakeholders about the project's status and ensuring coherence between stakeholder expectations and anticipated project outcomes.

This can have several dimensions:

* If it becomes necessary or beneficial to change or adjust project objectives, project managers must agree on this with relevant project stakeholders or secure necessary approvals.

* Regarding customers, they must ensure that solutions developed within the project address the problems customers need solved.

* If multiple interdependent projects run simultaneously, they must remain in contact with the project managers of other projects or with program/portfolio managers to ensure these interdependencies don't cause problems. They must consider these dependencies in their risk management.

What Are Project Managers Not Responsible For?

Oh my, that's a long list! For this reason, I won't enumerate everything here.

Subscribe to my newsletter to receive articles about the responsibilities and tasks of other project participants. The matters for which I see other roles bearing responsibility automatically fall outside the project manager's responsibility.

To put it briefly, the project manager's responsibility consists of planning and controlling, while the team and other project roles are responsible for execution and implementation. If problems arise, the project manager must escalate them, but others must take action. If they don't do so, this should not be held against the project manager.

Too often, I have experienced the project manager being held responsible for this. Not infrequently, this comes from those whose responsibility it actually is.

It's important to note that in English, 'control' in project management is often misunderstood when translated to German as 'Kontrolle' (which implies checking or monitoring). What I actually mean is 'steuern' - the active process of steering, guiding, or directing the project toward its objectives.

So, please be attentive and analyze emerging problems carefully. If you are a manager or stakeholder, listen to the project manager about where you need to provide support and don't hold them responsible when the team or organization doesn't deliver what the project manager requested.

Does the Project Manager Work Alone or Have Staff to Help Fulfill Their Responsibilities?

This is a fascinating question that I know has very controversial answers.

My opinion on this topic is absolutely not undisputed, I'm aware of that. Nevertheless, I want to present it here.

I believe project management is a full-time job.

A project is properly scoped when a highly qualified and experienced person can fulfill the aforementioned responsibilities alone and remains fully occupied doing so.

I'm not a fan of scenarios where project managers have a flock of helpers exclusively assisting them without bearing their own personal responsibility.

If project managers aren't fully occupied with the tasks and responsibilities described here, then the project is too small and consequently suffers from inadequate focus.

If project managers can't manage alone, then:

* The project is too large and should be intelligently divided into multiple projects, possibly bundled through a project program.

* They're insufficiently qualified and the wrong person for the job.

* They're doing things that aren't their responsibility, and measures must be taken to ensure the right roles complete their tasks and can fulfill their responsibilities.

Conclusion

Just as primary project objectives have three dimensions, project manager responsibilities also have three dimensions:

* Securing project objectives

* Managing the workload

* Reducing risks and solving problems

This keeps project managers fully occupied, leaving no time or attention for other matters. Hence, these have to be dealt with by other project participants.

I could probably write an entire book about this article's subject. However, I don't plan to do that at the moment.

Let's discuss in the comments or chat about which additional aspects or deep dives particularly interest you and what questions you have. Then we can either exchange ideas directly, or I can write further articles on these topics.

I'm really interested in your opinion. Please write your thoughts in the comments, or let's exchange ideas on this in the chat.

I will provide more detailed articles on project management topics, transformation, and change in the future. Please subscribe to ensure you do not miss any updates.

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