Effective Project Management

"A project manager is the person responsible for accomplishing the stated project objectives. Key project management responsibilities include creating clear and attainable project objectives, building the project requirements, and managing the constraints of the project management triangle, which are cost, time, scope, and quality.
A project manager is often a client representative and has to determine and implement the exact needs of the client, based on knowledge of the firm they are representing. A project manager is the bridging gap between the production team and client. So he/ she must have a fair knowledge of the industry they are in so that they are capable of understanding and discussing the problems with either party. The ability to adapt to the various internal procedures of the contracting party, and to form close links with the nominated representatives, is essential in ensuring that the key issues of cost, time, quality and above all, client satisfaction, can be realized.
The term and title 'project manager' has come to be used generically to describe anyone given responsibility to complete a project. However, it is more properly used to describe a person with full responsibility and the same level of authority required to complete a project. If a person does not have high levels of both responsibility and authority then they are better described as a project administrator, coordinator, facilitator or expeditor." [Project manager. Wikipedia]
The UML use case diagram example "Project administrator" was created using the ConceptDraw PRO diagramming and vector drawing software extended with the Rapid UML solution from the Software Development area of ConceptDraw Solution Park.

"As a discipline, task management embraces several key activities. Various conceptual breakdowns exist, and these, at a high-level, always include creative, functional, project, performance and service activities.
Creative activities pertain to task creation. In context, these should allow for task planning, brainstorming, creation, elaboration, clarification, organization, reduction, targeting and preliminary prioritization.
Functional activities pertain to personnel, sales, quality or other management areas, for the ultimate purpose of ensuring production of final goods and services for delivery to customers. In context these should allow for planning, reporting, tracking, prioritizing, configuring, delegating, and managing of tasks.
Project activities pertain to planning and time and costs reporting. These can encompass multiple functional activities but are always greater and more purposeful than the sum of its parts. In context project activities should allow for project task breakdown, task allocation, inventory across projects, and concurrent access to task databases.
Service activities pertain to client and internal company services provision, including customer relationship management and knowledge management. In context these should allow for file attachment and links to tasks, document management, access rights management, inventory of client & employee records, orders & calls management, and annotating tasks.
Performance activities pertain to tracking performance and fulfillment of assigned tasks. In context these should allow for tracking by time, cost control, stakeholders and priority; charts, exportable reports, status updates, deadline adjustments, and activity logging.
Report activities pertain to the presentation of information regarding the other five activities listed, including graphical display." [Task management. Wikipedia]
The example "Project tasks dashboard" was created using the ConceptDraw PRO diagramming and vector drawing software extended with the Status Dashboard solution from the area "What is a Dashboard" of ConceptDraw Solution Park.