Any organization’s growth opportunities fall into four different categories, and to develop your business in a commercially sustainable manner, you need specific types of project managers to pursue them. These types emerged from our ongoing work of understanding how different business development projects can drive strategic renewal in organizations.
Project Manager Types by Knowledge
In addition to professional knowledge and skills in part of project management, knowledge of the subject area in which the PM works. For example, the PM working in the field of software development must understand how a product is created, how software product development differs from any other areas of project activity, etc. If you dive even deeper, it can require knowledge of a specific narrow area.
For example, Google, Facebook, or boxed solutions, such as Windows or Skype, are created in a specific, fairly narrow area regarding the tasks. Each of these products contains certain subject knowledge, without which it would be impossible to create truly high-class products. Based on this division, and the depth of immersion in the subject area, the PM can be divided into three categories:
- Universal PM Such a manager generally knows and understands how to build projects, how to communicate, how to take risks into account, plan, etc. Those. All that is directly related to project management. In general, such people can control the development of projects in relatively established and well-established systems. But they can’t create new ideas and establish order “from scratch.”
- PM-techie Among other things knows what tools are used in the subject area, how are they used, which are good, and which are bad, how much time is usually required for certain types of work, etc. These PMs are well versed in tools, technology, and creating a product or service.
The second type of PM is well and reliably in the IT market. As a rule, there is always a steady demand for such professionals. But this type of PM is like a foreman at a construction site who has his team.
They find projects, do a quick, solid job, and go on to the next building site. They generally don’t create something revolutionary or outstanding.
- Artifact-PM knows the area in which the product is created impeccably – all the nuances, bottlenecks, and needs of the market, and its participants. These are professionals who are focused on the product. They study the area, determine, analyze current or predict future, needs. The Google search engine can be a good example: in addition to programming skills, and system administration, skills were also needed to develop a search algorithm with ranking for sites that would allow them to find the most relevant sites efficiently.
The third type of PMs are people who understand the area in which they work like the back of their hand. They know their customers, they know what consumers require. Professionals in their field, who create products that potential consumers don’t even know they want to use.
And when a product is born, it conquers the consumers and markets. Their work is like the creation of a new religion, a new idea.
On the other hand, such an approach is not very focused on making money. However, if the idea is successful, it brings super-profits.
Project Manager Types by Management Style
The employee types and the growth opportunities can be positioned along two dimensions:
- The growth opportunity is in line with our existing strategy
- The ability to build a reliable business case
These two dimensions create a matrix that distinguishes the four different kinds of project leaders.
4 Types of Project Managers
Management Styles
Executor – Always visible in the organization. He knows what and how to do, sharpened to satisfy the client. Often representatives of sales segments.
Expert – Methodical, has a linear way of thinking. Can carry out an analysis of ideas, and determine all the pitfalls and strengths.
Able to build processes. He possesses cool enthusiasm. Asks the right questions and foresees problems. He understands what is happening.
Gambler – Creative, able to adapt to a changing environment, risky, able to lead, charging the team with his enthusiasm, looking forward to the future.
Prophet – unites people, brings people with different characters and types of thinking into an agreement, delicately “feels them” and can understand the needs of everyone. Creates an atmosphere of mutual trust and respect. Can smooth out conflicts. Possesses deductive thinking.
Which Type of Project Manager Is Right for Which Project?
All four types are necessary pieces of your organizational constellation, even though the optimal dose of each may differ. No matter the style and approach, PMs use tools to manage project costs and risks, share documents, and collaborate in real-time.
Everybody tells you to have the right tools if you want to get the job done right. You must have an online project management tool that does this, that, and the other thing. Okay. But there are so many choices on the market.
The truth is, there are a lot of great project management tools out there, chock-full of features that are designed to help manage your project. That’s when the aggregation of the data from all these tools your teams use daily gets you ahead. PPM Express is exactly that.
It is a SaaS platform that enables an organization with a full portfolio and project visibility by aggregating project-related information across groups, portfolios, and systems. It connects all the data into one concise flow, that allows a PM to:
- Get real-time dashboards
- Create project plans online
- Improve task management
- Produce instant reports
- Manage team workload
- Ease the resource management
- Manage multiple projects
PPM Express can also offer many other benefits to enable project managers to complete their projects on schedule and within budget. PPM Express is a lightweight portfolio management tool, that suits the immediate needs of teams and business entities starting with 20 people, to the extent of large companies with hundreds to thousands of employees.
- Connects project data (terms, budgets, performance indicators) to a bigger picture.
- Integration with JIRA, Project Online, Asana, Trello, VSTS, etc.
- Makes data synchronization simple and swift
- Makes long-term and short-term reporting easier.
- Extremely adaptable to any market segment or business landscape.