Request an Experienced Web Project Manager
There are many project managers in your particular web agency with different experiences and skillsets. Take this opportunity to choose the most experienced project manager to handle your project as you are paying the same price even for the most junior project manager.
Ask about the background of your Project Manager (PM)
Find out more about your PM such as the following
- How long has the PM been with the company?
The PM will likely have a strong relationship with the developers and designers in the company to be able to push for your deadline to be met with others project running in the company. - What is the PM's discipline in?
Always choose a PM with strong technical skills and business skills. It is a red flag where your PM does not know simple SQL on how a database work or draw a UML flowchart diagram to explain detailed business requirements to the developers. Most likely your project will have lots of bugs and future issues causing unnecessary pain and suffering to you mentally. - How many and what is the scale of projects have the PM handled before?
The PM who is familiar with many project lifecycle will be able to avoid a lot of setbacks with prior experiences and be able to bring effective proven ideas from other industry disciplines to ensure your KPI is met. He will also possess better leadership skills to lead the project to completion.
In Summary - Good Project Manager
Team Oasis believes what separates a great Web Project Manager from an average one is the ability to look at a web project and be able to envisage the whole solution in its entirety from an early stage and with few gaps, thus being able to manage the project’s risks and maintain momentum.
They’ll be able to understand the creative requirements almost as well as a designer, the technical requirements almost as well as a developer and communicate both in a way that results in clear tasks that need to be completed and the perfect solution being delivered, all while not being sniggered at for pretending to play at being knowledgeable in these areas but instead gaining respect.
Perhaps some of the technical requirements are out of the Web Project Manager’s comfort zone; well the great ones will go home, dig in and do a bit of research until they feel comfortable they have grasped the basics.
A great Web Project Manager should be able to produce good project plans, schedules, sitemaps, wireframes, and functional specifications that production teams can work from with ease, rather than loose, fuzzy, vague and ambiguous documents that are recipes for disaster and all too commonly produced by people just wanting to pass the work onto someone else.
They’ll also be able to keep production teams motivated and focussed on producing quality work while taking all of the crap and stress from all directions in an attempt to shield them and let them work their magic unimpeded by project politics.
And finally, a great Web Project Manager will be able to talk to everyone involved on their level and in their language which leaves everyone in no doubt of the expectations and objectives of the project
To be an effective project manager, you must be capable of designing and developing the solution yourself. Otherwise, you have two options. You can either (a) ask others to make decisions for you, or (b) simply pretend you know what you’re talking about. In the first case, you’re a project co-ordinator. In the second case, you’re a project mangler.
