What Do Project Managers Do All Day? An Explanation in GIFs

One thing to know about the OHO team — we love Slack. Whether it’s to brainstorm about a project, trade terrible puns, or up our custom emoji game, we are totally here for it. 

The other day, one of our project managers gave us a much-needed late afternoon challenge: “Show me in a GIF what you think project managers do all day!”

Another thing to know about the OHO team — we love our project managers. Yes, even when they schedule us into yet another meeting. They don’t just keep the trains running on time — they make our work better and our partnerships stronger. 

So to celebrate International Project Management Day, here’s how OHO team members responded to the latest GIF challenge.

Tetris Time

Project management often entails fitting a lot of fast-moving disparate pieces together. If you can’t keep up, everything falls apart — but luckily, our PMs are up for the challenge.

Manning the Switchboard 

On any given website redesign or digital marketing project, you’ve got emails, phone calls, Slack DMs, meetings, and all sorts of conversations happening with all sorts of people. It can be hard to keep it all straight, but our project managers somehow pull it off. And that’s important, because clear, effective communication is essential to the success of a project. We pride ourselves on openness, honesty, and transparency in our dialogues with client partners.

A Balancing Act

Between multiple deliverables, meetings, and documents, there’s a lot to juggle on a given project. Somehow, our project managers make it look easy. (Having a proven process — and making sure client partners are bought into it — definitely helps.)

Resource Management

A project manager is not an island — they are working closely with other project managers at OHO to plan schedules and manage internal resources to ensure that every project gets the coverage it needs, staff have the right amount of time to do their job, and the project timeline continues to stay on track.

Herding Cats

Git along, little stakeholder! There is always a lot to wrangle on a project, whether we are talking about personalities or schedules. But I reckon our project managers can rustle up a solution when needed.

¡Olé!

We don’t like to admit it, but sometimes projects get hit with unexpected challenges — a pandemic, for example. Our project managers are pretty adept at dodging the big hits to make sure things keep moving forward as well as they realistically can.

Meeting Time

I know, I know. Meetings aren’t always fun. But our project managers make sure that every meeting has an agenda, a purpose, and relevant action items coming out of it. And if there’s five minutes left at the end, that’s some bonus found time! Or maybe a chance to watch a funny video together.

Regularly scheduled meetings are also how our clients are kept apprised of budget, project status, risks or blockers, upcoming milestones, and any other issues that may arise.

Multitasking!

Who can shred on the guitar while karate-chopping flaming stacks of wood? A project manager, of course! (Yes, our PMs are this badass.)

Make a List

Whether we are working on a website redesign or a digital marketing campaign, there’s so much happening in any given project. Being organized is key. Using tools like Basecamp, Google Docs, and good ol’ fashioned to-do lists help keep track of it all and make sure everyone knows their marching orders.

*Poke Poke Poke*

Let’s be honest — we all need a reminder every now and then. Our PMs stay on top of all the project expectations, both internally and on the client side, to keep things moving smoothly.

This is Fine

When things seem chaotic and stressful, whether it’s due to executive pressure or external circumstances, a project manager can be an oasis of calm in the storm, helping safely steer the project ship to port. 

Lifesavers

At the end of the day, we’ve all got a lot going on, both here at OHO and at your organization. Some days, it can all be a little overwhelming — especially given everything happening in the world. Project managers want to keep things rolling smoothly, sure, but when life happens, they’re more than willing to take that into account and adjust as needed. And nowadays, we could all use someone extra looking out for us.