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The software engineer and the project manager provide complementary skills and work collaboratively on shared activities. The three main activities of the project manager are organizational liaison, personnel management, and project monitoring and control. The "Liaison" section discusses the project manager's role as a go-between for the technical team and agents who are not members of the technical team (such as project sponsors, users, IS management, vendors, and so on).
In the "Personnel Management" section, you will learn that this job entails working with personnel and human resources to hire, fire, and provide employees with professional development.
The "Monitor and Control" section explains that project monitoring involves tracking project progress relative to budget. Project control means implementing changes when progress is not satisfactory (such as training or revising project plans).
Liaison
The project manager is a buffer between the technical staff and outside organizations. In this liaison role, the project manager communicates and negotiates with agents who are not part of the project team. A liaison is a person who provides communications between two departments. Examples of outside agents include the project sponsor (who mayor may not be the user), IS managers, vendors, operations managers, other project managers, and other departments such as quality assurance (for validation and testing), law (for contracts), and administration (for clerical and secretarial support).
For each type of liaison, status reports are an important means of communication (see sample in Figure 3-6). Status reports document progress, identify problems and their resolution, and identify changes of plans to all interested parties. In addition, many other communications of different types are described for each type of liaison. The guidelines here are just that - guidelines. They are developed assuming that open communications between concerned parties is desired, but the guidelines require judgment and knowledge of the situation to separate a good action from a less good action.