Antoine Garcia: the job of project manager

"The job of project manager develops competences in methodologies, leadership, negotiation, problem solving and anticipation. It is a stepping-stone within the company."

This is a working method that becomes more and more usual in companies: the project organisation. High tech is already used to it up to a point that project managers on the Riviera have founded one the most active "chapter" of the project manager world association: the PMI France-sud (Project management Institute). Whilst specific trainings have been launched out. Thus, last week, a graduation ceremony was organised at the ESINSA of Sophia Antipolis, for the first Project Management DESS.November 15th, during the PMI forum on leadership, the position of project manager will be in the heart of the debate. Antoine Garcia, the founder of AG Consulting, a consulting agency in Human Resources management, in Sophia Antipolis, an agency specialised in NICT, has observed this evolution. During the forum, he will try to determine, through his professional experience, which competences are asked to project managers.- SN.com: Why does the job of project manager seem today to become more and more important within the company ? - Antoine Garcia: The trend is the following: companies have been evaluating toward the project management for around fifteen years. In this framework, the project manager is the key element of this new kind of management. Large international companies had set up internal project management trainings (IBM, Thomson, Aerospatiale, Philips, TI, etc). Then, training organisations have created trainings specifically intended to project managers as the project management DESS at the Sophia Antipolis ESINSA.Professors are organised in a project process as well. An example with a human resources management training: the human resources engineering DESS in Nice is based on an project approach. This process perfectly corresponds to the complexity of situations (management, social partners, providers, administration, etc) to take into account when there is a change. Today, in industry as well as in education, the position of project management has come into general use. Now, there are several project managers associations (PMI, APITEL, etc), that promote this job.- SN.com: Which demands does this kind of project management meet ? - Antoine Garcia: We are today in a world of specialists. In order to meet a demand, the company will prompt various specialities or appeal to various partners. There can be local partners or you can find them abroad. In order to coordinate their action and to manage these different actors, you have to have a director. And two major qualities are asked to the latter: he has to be a manager and a leader (the person who has enough charisma and vision to lead and motivate the team).- SN.com: What are the competences developed by this job of project manager ? - Antoine Garcia: The job of project manager develops competences in methodology, leadership, problem solving and anticipation. Those competences are the core of managers' competences. This position is also a stepping-stone for an evolution within the company, an evolution that can even go up to the position of company manager. In large groups, there are numerous examples of project managers who have been upgraded to positions with further responsibilities.