Member $99.00 | Non-Member $159.00
INSTRUCTOR: Howard Birnberg
Purpose and Background
Every individual has their own reasons for choosing a career path that led them to becoming an engineer or an architect. However, there are some reasons common to all. All engineers have an interest in construction—whether buildings, water management, waste management, structures or other projects put-in-place through a construction process. They are problem solvers seeking solutions to the needs of a client, improving the quality of life or fixing a natural or man-made mishap or removing an obstacle. They enjoy seeing their work (designs, calculations, solutions, etc.) turned into reality.
It is very rare that engineers and architects set out early in their career to be a project manager. Fortunately for their firms and clients many capable people move into that role and perform well. They become project managers because there was a need, or they were in "the wrong place at the wrong time" and were picked by senior management. Maybe they showed an aptitude to meet the responsibilities of project management.
This webinar discusses the responsibilities and challenges of becoming an engineering firm project manager.
Primary Discussion Topics
- Why you became an engineer
- Why you became a project manager
- What a project manager does
- What a project needs to know to do their job
Learning Objectives
- Define why people become engineers
- Analyze how people become project managers
- Clarify what project managers do
- Examine some of their primary responsibilities
- Discuss some of the challenges project managers face
- Understand basic management concepts
Webinar Benefits
- Consider how student became a project manager
- Discuss the responsibilities of being a project manager
- Examine the challenges project managers face
- Recognize that many others face the same challenges
- Determine the consequences of a weak or ineffective project management system
Intended Audience
- Project managers
- Design firm managers and owners
- Private practice engineering firm employees
- Other design professionals
Webinar Outline
- Why you became an engineer
- How you became a project manager
- Management concepts for project managers
- Importance of the system/process
- Use of technology
- Effective communications
- Team approach
- Cross training
- Authority=responsibility
- Decision making to the lowest effective level
- Problems traced to a weak or ineffective project management system
- Characteristics of project team managers
- Strong organizational ability
- Generalist
- Insight
- Ability to monitor the project
- Communicative
- Experience
- Leadership ability
- Ability to make decisions
- • Project manager responsibilities
- Specific responsibilities
- Marketing and continued contact
- RFP/RFQ preparation/fee determination and negotiation
- Staff planning and assembly of the project team
- Managing the project
- Quality management
- Team relations
- Project status reporting
- Billing and collection