What is the Role of a Project Manager?

The goal of every digital project is different, but the overarching measure of success is to see growth in your business. Whether your project is aimed specifically at improving sales conversions, lead generation or brand awareness, the ultimate goal of digital projects is to create and convert opportunities to grow your business online. Within this context, many companies ask: What difference does a project manager make, and why should you pay for this service?

Task Management

When working with a good digital agency, the client will only see some of the activities that their allocated project manager performs. This can result in frustration when presented with an invoice for services that don’t seem necessary.

A digital project has many moving parts. Without coordination, chaos would reign. 

This is where a project manager is invaluable. The role of the project manager includes:

• Acting as the communication link between a client and their agency
• Motivating the team and creating channels of communication
• Organising and managing workflow
• Budget and time management
• Quality control
  and
• Bringing the project to fruition within a restricted timeline

To facilitate these tasks, the project manager will lean into their experience and knowledge of content management systems, HTML, SEO tactics, Google Analytics, user experience software and project management software.

The digital project manager is hands-on. They constantly track, review and measure results because they must make necessary adjustments when actual progress isn’t meeting the planned progress.

In many instances, a digital project won’t have a hard ending but will remain open for support throughout its life. Think of an eCommerce website that requires constant adjustment, with ongoing content marketing, social media and/or pay per click (PPC) ad campaigns. A project manager is required to always be cognisant of the performance and requirements of your project.

Communication

The project manager is your representative within the digital agency. They understand what you want and will always fight to see that vision realised. Your PM will report to you on project progress and relay your needs and concerns back to the team. You are likely to engage with your project manager on issues like project scope, feedback and budget management.

Project Scope

Before any project begins, the agency must understand your needs. More importantly, you need to have confidence in the agency’s ability to produce a product or service that meets those needs. The project manager must calibrate your expectations, including:

• What can be accomplished within time
• Budget
• Technology, and
• Resource constraints

Expectation management is often a very difficult exercise as it requires a holistic approach to the project. This is why one of the core traits of a good project manager is clear and concise communication. 

Feedback

It is rare that a project will run smoothly from beginning to end. The project manager will, at some point, have to deliver bad news to a client. But, bad news doesn’t have to mean that the whole project is doomed to fail. By reassuring the client that the agency has the best problem solvers on the job, the project manager will manage client panic. There is no greater danger to a digital project than panic. 

Budget Management

Return on Investment (ROI) is closely tied to budget management. In the planning phase, the project manager must allocate the correct amount of the budget to each corresponding task. Throughout the course of the project, they must take the necessary steps to manage expenses incurred during the course of the project in order to prevent unnecessary costs. Staying within the budget requires active involvement from start to finish.

Project Management is an Essential Service

It is safe to say that project management is imperative to the success of your digital project. A project that meets set quality standards and is delivered both on time and within budget is a successful project. This is achieved through active engagement by an experienced professional.

When you work with Arcadian Digital, we’ll provide you with a dedicated and experienced project manager for the duration of your project. No matter how small your question or how strange your request, our PMs are here to guide you the entire way. We believe in fostering long term relationships and take an active interest in educating our clients alongside each project to ensure they understand what has been completed and why.