One Quality of a Great Project Manager: The Buck Stops Here

There are so many qualities of a great Project Manager that this article will likely be the first of a number “too numerous to count” (TNTC*).  *Shout out to everyone who has ever grown cultures in a petri dish!

One aspect of being a great Project Manager is embracing the concept that “The Buck Stops Here.”  Another indication of this concept is that great Project Managers find they love the word “done.”  As in “Done, done, and more done.” Good Project Managers may not always know every single minute task associated with completing the overall project at the outset, but they can identify milestones, or gateways, and then articulate the steps required to accomplish each one.  As the situation changes, which so *rarely* happens J, a good Project Manager ascertains the new things which need to be done in order to remove roadblocks, complete enablers, or just plain move the project to the next phase.

Here’s an example, hearkening back to when I was a Project Manager on a large construction project.  We had to put in a major gas and liquid supply system where the tanks would be leased, but the piping was built and owned by the client.  Part of the lease deal was that the supplier would provide design services for the filling station and pipelines to the tanks themselves.  However, the supplier was busier than just our one project, and the entire design creation and approval, not to mention starting the actual work itself, was in danger of becoming delayed!

What is a Project Manager to do?  There are two choices:  One: talk and try to push the supplier to do their job, or Two: act (remembering that “the buck stops here”).  I chose the latter option.  First, I documented the history of requests and responses for the design that I had facilitated with the supplier.  Next, I discussed those with the Project Director, who was my boss, and obtained his support to act.  Third, I took action. 

Now, I am not a design engineer, but I did have one on my team.  I also had several representatives from the client who were the ultimate users of the building available for consult.  And I managed to get the supplier’s representative out to site for a meeting.  Together, we walked the site and I took notes and took pictures of the site while the engineer sketched what the users wanted while providing input as to what was feasible from an engineering standpoint.  The supplier representative basically just tagged along, happy for someone else to get the design work completed.   The meeting took less than an hour and at the end, we all agreed to the sketched design.  I documented everything and sent it out to the team for reference.   We were then able to move forward with the General Contractor and Subcontractors to complete the construction work. 

This type of situation has happened many times in my experience as a Project Manager.  Someone has to take responsibility and accountability to be the point person and get the work done.  That person rarely gets any glory – after all, she didn’t design the great layout, make the actual product, test it or approve the results.  Yet, without the diligent Project Manager striving for the ultimate “Done,” that buck has a funny way of not stopping.  

AJC helps in a myriad of ways in the Project Management space.  We can act as Project Managers, coach client teams to becoming independent project managers, or work with client individual project managers to hone their skills and support them as they then facilitate their team’s work.  The ultimate quality we stress the most is that the Project Manager is the person who embraces the adage that “the buck stops here.”