Example Career: Information Technology Project Managers

Career Description

Plan, initiate, and manage information technology (IT) projects. Lead and guide the work of technical staff. Serve as liaison between business and technical aspects of projects. Plan project stages and assess business implications for each stage. Monitor progress to assure deadlines, standards, and cost targets are met.

What Job Titles Information Technology Project Managers Might Have

• IT Project Manager
• Program Manager
• Project Manager
• Project Manager/Team Coach

What Information Technology Project Managers Do

• Manage project execution to ensure adherence to budget, schedule, and scope.
• Develop or update project plans for information technology projects including information such as project objectives, technologies, systems, information specifications, schedules, funding, and staffing.
• Monitor or track project milestones and deliverables.
• Confer with project personnel to identify and resolve problems.
• Develop and manage work breakdown structure (WBS) of information technology projects.
• Submit project deliverables, ensuring adherence to quality standards.
• Prepare project status reports by collecting, analyzing, and summarizing information and trends.
• Direct or coordinate activities of project personnel.
• Establish and execute a project communication plan.
• Assign duties, responsibilities, and spans of authority to project personnel.
• Schedule and facilitate meetings related to information technology projects.
• Initiate, review, or approve modifications to project plans.
• Perform risk assessments to develop response strategies.
• Monitor the performance of project team members, providing and documenting performance feedback.
• Negotiate with project stakeholders or suppliers to obtain resources or materials.
• Identify need for initial or supplemental project resources.
• Coordinate recruitment or selection of project personnel.
• Identify, review, or select vendors or consultants to meet project needs.
• Develop and manage annual budgets for information technology projects.
• Develop implementation plans that include analyses such as cost-benefit or return on investment (ROI).
• Assess current or future customer needs and priorities through communicating directly with customers, conducting surveys, or other methods.

What Information Technology Project Managers Should Be Good At

• Oral Comprehension - The ability to listen to and understand information and ideas presented through spoken words and sentences.
• Written Comprehension - The ability to read and understand information and ideas presented in writing.
• Oral Expression - The ability to communicate information and ideas in speaking so others will understand.
• Written Expression - The ability to communicate information and ideas in writing so others will understand.
• Problem Sensitivity - The ability to tell when something is wrong or is likely to go wrong. It does not involve solving the problem, only recognizing there is a problem.
• Deductive Reasoning - The ability to apply general rules to specific problems to produce answers that make sense.
• Speech Clarity - The ability to speak clearly so others can understand you.
• Inductive Reasoning - The ability to combine pieces of information to form general rules or conclusions (includes finding a relationship among seemingly unrelated events).
• Information Ordering - The ability to arrange things or actions in a certain order or pattern according to a specific rule or set of rules (e.g., patterns of numbers, letters, words, pictures, mathematical operations).
• Near Vision - The ability to see details at close range (within a few feet of the observer).

What Information Technology Project Managers Need to Learn

• Administration and Management - Knowledge of business and management principles involved in strategic planning, resource allocation, human resources modeling, leadership technique, production methods, and coordination of people and resources.
• Customer and Personal Service - Knowledge of principles and processes for providing customer and personal services. This includes customer needs assessment, meeting quality standards for services, and evaluation of customer satisfaction.
• English Language - Knowledge of the structure and content of the English language including the meaning and spelling of words, rules of composition, and grammar.
• Computers and Electronics - Knowledge of circuit boards, processors, chips, electronic equipment, and computer hardware and software, including applications and programming.
• Personnel and Human Resources - Knowledge of principles and procedures for personnel recruitment, selection, training, compensation and benefits, labor relations and negotiation, and personnel information systems.
• Mathematics - Knowledge of arithmetic, algebra, geometry, calculus, statistics, and their applications.