While the Project Manager is away...

The real value of a thing is only realized when it gets out of your reach or is lost. We all know this fact but for one reason or the other, practically this statement is true in most of the cases

I have always used to think and wonder quite frequently about the role of the Project Managers in general, during the course of the project. I knew the fact that he is basically a bridge, a communication channel, a protocol by the help of which all of us (the whole team) get to know of the client and its requirements. But I have always thought that this is perhaps not the toughest job on earth; even a person with some experience and having good common sense could do it. But I was overwhelmingly wrong when my own project manager went to an onshore center for a few weeks

While he was away, I really got to know the real value of the managerial role that he has been carrying out. I would explain each of them briefly here, as per my understanding:

Task Assignment:

He knew about the task assignment of all of us. And most importantly, he knew the overlapping of the tasks which have been assigned to all of us, and he managed that all, without having any one of us wonder that perhaps I am being utilized the most

Resource Utilization:

Effective resource utilization is the factor that discriminates between Good project managers and Effective project managers. And I believe that he belongs to the latter. He knew about the potential of his team at the collective as well as the individual level, which empowers him with the ability to transform the complex situations faced during the course of the project, to simpler ones

Vision:

To foresee the things before they actually happen is considered an inherent ability of a manager, and perhaps this is the ability for which he is paid higher than any of the project team members. As a testing resource, sometimes I do get the feeling that I know more details than him, but at most of the times, he has proved me wrong by guiding me with some cheeky technical details that I could have easily missed. In addition to this, he always had a run-time Impact Analyzer running in his mind, which would always predict the possible problems that we could face if we had taken a specific implementation/testing decision

One-stop solution:

A manager is always a one-stop solution. He has the way out for every problem and most interestingly, that way is always practical, achievable and in most of the cases, effective. I have come across a number of scenarios where I had put my problem solving abilities to find a quick solution to a problem and failed. And whenever I have put the same problem with all of my failed solutions to the manager, he has given me a practical solution in no time which had always left me wondering, why I have not been able to figure that out. And in the end, I used to say, if I could have found out this, I should have been the manager

Protective shield:

While my manager was with us, all of us never bothered about the client; never ever. We simply don’t know what a client actually means. But in the absence of my manager, we really got to know how the client actually deals, and at that time, we simply praised our manager by heart for dealing with clients in such a humble manner. He used to endure all the harsh mails and comments of the client and communicate the issues to us in an effective manner. He unwillingly, had to get his fingers crossed for both; he has to tackle the always aggressive client and also has to manage us

A couple of years back, I have came across a survey conducted by a company (perhaps Wipro) in which they came to the conclusion that people don’t leave the organizations, they rather leave their managers

And I am glad that it has been above 3 years that I am in the same company, under the same manager