What is Project Management and Which Skills Are Essential?

Discover how a project manager contributes to a balanced and effective workflow between clients and creatives

If you work in a busy creative office, these phrases may sound familiar...

“Our team has no idea what your team is doing!”
“When's this due again?”
“We’ll have to choose between late but finished, and on-time but incomplete.”

This is where a project manager comes in. They bring order to the chaos, and turn big ideas into actionable plans that result in the ideal deliverables at the end of a project. But what does this process actually look like?

Sophie Simmons (@sophiesimmonsltd) is a Madrid-based project manager from the UK. She studied media and communications at university and earned a degree in e-commerce from Hyper Island.

She has over a decade of experience, and has worked in cities around the world including Stockholm, San Francisco, and London, for brands including Lego, Burberry, L’Oréal, and Deliveroo. This has allowed her to combine a love for media and travel into a career where her organizational skills translate into wildly successful campaigns and products.

Here, she explains what a project manager actually does for team productivity, the benefits they bring, and the "superpowers" that define a great one…

What is project management?

In her course, Sophie explains that a project manager communicates and collaborates with many people at once—usually a client, stakeholders, and creative teams.

Their main goal? To combine communication with attention to detail and time management, ensuring that a completed product is delivered within all of the relevant constraints. Unforeseen changes and costs should be minimized, so a project runs smoothly from start to finish.

Project managers may work in-house for one brand, in an agency for many brands, or as a freelance creative. Freelancers often specialize in a specific technique or style that will make them stand out to potential clients.

Often, the projects that benefit most from a manager are in ad agencies, design, web development, and other creative fields. This is because the teams are frequently from a wide variety of disciplines, work remotely or move around, and have complex digital pipelines that may need streamlining.

What are the benefits of working with a project manager?

Working with a project manager will mean your project is trackable—you always know what stage everyone's at. A good manager can keep on top of information, centralizing your strategy in one place.

You can also rest assured that the project will stay on budget, which is especially important if you’re launching an ambitious new product and/or money is tight.

Your workflow should also be smoother, as the project manager "unblocks blockers". For instance, if a technical issue affects one aspect of the project, they'll help teams pivot until the issue is resolved, maintaining progress on other tasks.

Finally, the personal element of project management is undeniable. They should be able to meet with a company and analyze both its structure, and the unique personalities they’ll be working with. Everyone is different, and has different needs and expectations. By acting as a support system and a negotiator, the project manager can handle the human side of getting things done, too.

It’s all about keeping team members excited, while also respecting each other’s time. That may mean saying "no" to extras and nice-to-haves, Sophie notes, but in the kindest possible way!

Key responsibilities

There are three main areas of responsibility you’ll need to answer to, if being a project manager sounds like your ideal career. Firstly, there is of course the organizing and planning aspect. You need to be good with spreadsheets, Gantt charts, and other tracking techniques. You’ll also need a good memory of dates, and the ability to do calculations here and there for budgeting.

Secondly, you need to be confident talking to different people at different levels in the company. Running meetings, giving weekly status updates, and managing feedback are all potential tasks you may have.

Finally, you need to be able to balance the big picture with important details. Sophie stresses that an "eagle eye" view of the project needs to be at the back of your mind all the time. Workload, resources, and above all the final deliverables—they need to sit in perfect harmony with each other.

Superpowers

Finally, Sophie explains that there are a few magical "powers" that a great manager will have. If these traits come naturally to you, you’re off to a great start.

- Flexibility: you can “wear different hats” and see from multiple perspectives
- Calm: you think before you act, and keep others relaxed
- Empathetic: you adapt to different people’s moods and create a great culture
- Proactive: you think three steps ahead

The term "project management” might sound self-explanatory, but in fact there’s plenty going on in this challenging role. If balancing spreadsheets and creative discussions sounds like the perfect opportunity to you, check out Sophie’s course. For your final project, you’ll create a clear and comprehensive statement of work (SOW) designed to help you deliver a client project on time and on budget.

And to expand your business knowledge in the ever-changing digital space, we have hundreds of business courses on everything from creative consulting to marketing strategies.

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- 5 Online Project Management Courses to Increase Productivity
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- Project Management for Creatives, a course by Layla Boyd
- Leadership for Creatives: Find Your Style, a course by Gillian Davis