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Hey Sofia,
Thank you so much for sharing your experience here! :)
I wanted to add some things for people interested in project management/considering a career in project management:
(1) Problem-solving was almost at the end of your list and problem-solving is probably the thing I do THE MOST as a project manager (at least in the kinds of projects that I work in). Actually, I think an accurate name for my role could be "Problem-solving Officer" :D. Most problems coming from: processes not being clear/standard (things not being done/not being done the way they should be done), software solutions not working as expected, capacity bottlenecks (if a colleague gets sick how do we organize to meet a deadline), etc.
-> Skills that are helpful for this: resourcefulness, ability the (re)prioritize, ability to communicate clearly under stress
(2) To the meetings part I would add: Meeting design. Aside from "just" organising meetings I've needed to: rethink which meetings we need, how many, what structure, designing templates, etc.
-> Skills helpful for this: Openness to experimentation and willingness to give up something that is not working. Usually the best evidence to know whether any type of meeting is working or not is inside of the organization and not within a research paper (I tend to use the latter to inform my experiments). I'm lucky to work for a team that is open to both the experiments and dropping stuff that's not working. No hard feelings on either side :)
(3) Re-training people: Usually when you train people in your team (let's say to do a specific task) it's more or less clear how to do the thing by themselves. The issues arise when the person acts as part of a process where others are involved as well. Poor team coordination can happen a lot: lack of communication, poor understanding of a project process, etc. For this we usually do "ad hoc meetings" in which we look at a specific process and develop ideas on how to either standardize it, communicate better with one another or automatize something.
-> Skills helpful for this: Knowing how to or have the eagerness to figure out how to automatize and optimize processes, ability to explain/teach stuff to people
(5) Change management: As projects evolve there's always some type of change: leadership changes, software changes, process changes, etc. Knowing how to drive the change to something new is something I think every project manager should bring!
(6) Last but not least: I've found that my role as a project manager varies a lot depending on the project I'm working in (currently for my full-time job it it's three projects)
I found these PMO archetypes helpful to understand what I'm needed for as a project manager in different projects:
- In one project I'm pretty much your facilitator: I'm there to consult/coach my colleagues, help them structure their ideas, guide their decision-making and own planning
- In another project I'm very much needed as the perfectionist: I'm constantly asking myself how can I drive optimization, automation, etc.? (as a lot of processes had evolved organically)
I'm realizing now that this has turned into a mini "Writing about my job" posts :D But maybe I'll do a proper one later :)
A great post, and one I definitely would have benefitted from reading before taking on my current, and first, PM role!
One point you made that I would like to expand on, only because there is an aspect of it in my job that surprised me, is that as a PM you'll end up doing many things yourself. In my role, I've found that this is often true as an intermediary step on the way to a long(er)-term solution; in many ways, this is my favorite part of what I do. If something needs to be done and there is no one to do it, then it's on me to handle it as a containment until a solution can be created. That can mean hiring someone, delegating it to a person or team, or creating a system that simplifies the task to the point of triviality or negates the need for it altogether. Regardless of the outcome, you get to become the expert in that thing before passing it along or reducing/eliminating the need for it. This is both extremely interesting from a work perspective (variety is the spice of life, and all that), and also a great way to learn the whole of the project as if you were a quilt maker -- looking at the large and small.