Project Manager. It’s one of those titles that seem pretty self-evident. The answer lies in the very words — someone who manages a project. Yet, this simple definition cannot adequately convey the extent of this role and the many varied components this individual or company oversees during the course of a construction project.

The Role of a Project Manager

Cam Brown, a former Project Manager with Trumbull-Nelson Construction Co. who now manages a commercial golf course while doing some outside project managing, defines a project manager as “someone who is totally in charge of a construction project from start to finish and involved in all facets of the project from design development through estimating, scheduling and interaction between the architects, engineers, subcontractors and owner. He is really the point man for all the information and everything that happens concerning the project.”

A Project Manager may be an individual or a management firm involved in supervising a construction project, whether it is residential or commercial. Projects range from simple, fixed cost projects in which a project manager ensures that an estimate is complete and all the trades are in place, to larger projects in which an owner hires an architect and all the other disciplines and looks to a construction manager to oversee issues as they develop and manage the interaction between
the trades.

A Project Manager’s duties range from scheduling and dealing with delays and changes to identifying and managing resources and assuring the project is built to specifications. A project manager needs to be able to identify the information that is needed to complete a project, understand who is able to provide it — and convey this information to the appropriate parties to ensure that a project is properly completed.

“The primary role of the manager is to recognize as early as possible – and maybe even before anyone else – the impact of things,” says Scott Osgood, Senior Project Manager at Trumbull-Nelson. “You find out someone’s work is taking a little longer than expected or that someone didn’t show up when planned. Our job is to recognize the impact and manage the expectations so that everyone involved is aware of the effect and knows about it in time to deal with it.”

A Project Manager’s role can be challenging. “What I found interesting working as a project manager is the fact that depending on the project, you could spend as much time on a $200,000 project as you could on a $4 million project,” says Brown. “It’s a matter of complexity.”

The Skills of a Project Manager

Overseeing and pulling together so many facets of a project obviously can be quite challenging. How does a Project Manager manage?

“Pay attention” says Osgood. “One way to make your job very easy is to ask the people doing the work how much time they will need and schedule around that. You can’t know what another company’s needs are. It’s experience and having a good sense of how much time something will take and knowing how many steps are involved.”

It also helps to have a good supervisor who can convey to the Project Manager all that is going on at the job site. “That doesn’t mean a Project Manager can’t go there himself. There’s no way around it other then talking to people,” says Osgood, stressing the importance of communication.

According to the FMI Corporation and the Construction Management Association of America’s (FMI/CMAA) Fifth Annual Survey of Owners (2004), the top answer given as the change that would most significantly contribute to improving the quality of the delivery process resulting in more successful projects was “more effective communications.”

“Project managers need to have technical ability and an understanding of engineering, math and science, but must also have the ability to understand people and businesses.”

Project Managers certainly need to have good working relationships with a variety of participants including owners, designers, supervisors, subcontractors and municipal officials, each with their own roles and vested interests in a project.

“When you ask someone to do something you have to understand what the ramifications are for their business and the people as well as the technical aspects of it,” says Osgood.

“You have to be available. You have to be confident, aggressive, willing to put in all kinds of hours. You have to be organized and can’t let things get to you,” says Brown.

The Tools of a Project Manager

Although establishing good relationships and collaboration among all participants on a project is key to success, today a Project Manager also has at his or her disposal technological tools that not only help achieve their goal, but also organize a project’s various tasks.

“It’s a whole new world,” says Osgood. “I compare it to my grandfather who worked in the power industry as an engineer. I still have his books from the 1800s. The science was the same then as it is today, but now instead of having a book with a few charts and tables in it, you have a computer that can enable you to check out a complete range of things. Today’s technology gives us access to much more information. That’s the big difference. In some ways you could say we have more control.”

Technology in the construction industry can range from laser-guided bulldozers and sophisticated 3D CAD design programs to the estimating and scheduling software used by Project Managers. Estimating software can be customized to an individual company, making a highly detailed estimate faster and less expensive to build.

Scheduling software can be “very user friendly,” says Osgood, and is actually a contract requirement on many jobs. The FMI/CMAA survey records that almost 60 percent of owners typically rely on the contractor or construction manger’s software to track and report on progress.

“Certain tasks have to be completed before certain other tasks can even start. Scheduling software provides an analysis of this, putting together a project schedule for the full duration of a job,” says Brown.

Cell phones, pagers and e-mail have increased access and communication among project participants. In fact, 80 percent of owners in the FMI/CMAA survey believed that project collaboration software could help reduce miscommunication and disputes on projects. Web-based communication and collaboration programs are already available, bringing information and project participants together in a virtual setting.

“One of the best ways to get a team to collaborate is to define the mission and expectations of the project and put that on a web site so that everyone is aware of their role while communicating through one tool,” says Bruce D’Agostino, executive director of CMAA.

Technology, however, can present some challenges. There is an additional cost not only in purchasing such software, but also in training people to use it and in having specialists available who are versed in it. “Technology brings a lot of baggage with it,” says Osgood. “Sometimes I think it is good to give it a second thought and ask if it is necessary and if there is the budget for it.”

Also, while scheduling software aids a Project Manager in establishing, tracking and updating a project’s schedule, its ease of use can also lead to excessive tweaking that could lessen the value of the schedule over time. “It is far better to make a schedule and track it. If you are behind schedule, well, you’re behind schedule. You don’t make a new schedule,” Osgood says. “Technology in the field makes things quicker, but you still need to understand it and use it right.”

The Education of a Project Manager

According to the U.S. Department of Labor, construction managers held 389,000 jobs in 2002. People come to the field through a variety of paths, many having worked in some other area of the industry such as an estimator or engineer. Typically, people advance to the position of Project Manager after having substantial experience in the field. Although there are degree programs in construction management, Osgood says that “no matter what you get your degree in, you still have to learn the business.”

Project Managers need to have technical ability and an understanding of engineering, math and science, but must also have the ability to understand people and businesses. “This takes a little bit of time,” Osgood says.

In recent years, there has been a movement toward certifying construction managers. Both the CMAA and the American Institute of Constructors (AIC) offer certification programs.

“Certification is very important in promoting professionalism and excellence in management of the construction process. Anyone can write construction manager on the side of their pickup truck, but owners don’t want to deal with someone who isn’t qualified,” says D’Agostino.