Project Coordinator Skills and Responsibilities

Project Coordinator Skills and Responsibilities

Project management teams include many professionals with different skills and knowledge. Thousands of tasks need to be organized, reports need to be created and meetings need to be assembled within large and sophisticated projects. During the project execution, professionals hold different roles in order to complete the project on time and budget with meeting the requirements. A project coordinator is a member of a project management team who coordinates and organizes the tasks and keeps the project running smoothly. In this article, we will discuss key project coordinator responsibilities and the top four project coordinator skills.

Who is a Project Coordinator?



Project coordinators take active roles as supporting the project manager and team in almost every industry project. A project coordinator behaves like an assistant project manager and works closely with the project manager while performing tasks. The project manager appoints the project coordinator and their roles are complementary. Unlike the project managers, project coordinators are mostly involved in the project information. They coordinate activities, project tasks and organize the resources to perform the activities. Therefore, a project coordinator spends most of his time with problem-solving and organizing meetings. For that reason, he must be flexible and knowledgeable. Before discussing key project coordinator skills, let’s take a glance at the project coordinator responsibilities.

Project Coordinator Responsibilities

Below are some of the responsibilities taken actively by a successful project coordinator.

Coordination of Tasks and Project Activities

The main objective of a project coordinator is to complete the project by coordinating project activities. Coordinating the workforce, machinery, material, logistics, and activities are the everyday work routine of a coordinator. Therefore, a good project coordinator should be highly organized and able to keep many plates spinning as well as being a great administrator.

Planning

The planning process is one of the most important project management processes within the project’s life cycle. Therefore understanding the importance of planning is key for any project’s success. Project coordinators take active roles during the development of project plans and schedules. They analyze the schedules and convey them to the various people they are coordinating.

A project coordinator ensures that those plans and schedules incorporate issues, scope changes, budget problems, resource conflicts.

Play a Role in Project Management



Project coordinators take active roles in project management. Therefore they need to understand the project management knowledge areas such as risk management, integration management, quality management, etc.

They often adopt techniques and incorporate the knowledge of project management to improve the efficiency of the project.

Procurement and Logistics

Projects often involve various types of materials and resources. Therefore a project coordinator spends most of his time with managing the project budget, communicating with vendors, suppliers, and third parties.

Point of Contact

A project coordinator is the point of contact for many people who are inside and outside the project. Clients representatives, various types of stakeholders, suppliers, and subcontractors often make contact with the project coordinator.

Simply put a project coordinator is often involved in communicating with various people all the time. For example, now he is dealing with a client query, five minutes later he will discuss with a subcontractor who is running later he will attend a meeting related to the performance of the project.

Project Coordinator Skills

Project coordinators should possess some skills to perform the responsibilities successfully. Below are some of the project coordinator skills.

Leadership

A project coordinator must have leadership skills and influence the project team towards the achievement of project goals. The project team must accept him as a leader and the coordinator must behave like a leader.

Coordinators must guide the workforce towards success and encourage teamwork by influencing team members. They may assign responsibilities to each group member and assemble meetings to perform the tasks.

Communication



Communication plays a significant role in project management. Project coordinators are responsible for communicating issues related to the project to all the project stakeholders. A project coordinator must have the ability to express his ideas to his team. The team members must understand what he wants to say.

Also, he must establish well communication channels with the client. He must have both verbal and written communication skills.

Education and Knowledge

A project coordinator must be well educated in the project management knowledge areas. Therefore he must know what project management is. Also, he must have knowledge about the industry related to his project. If his project is active in the software industry, he must have knowledge of software, likewise, if his project is active in the construction industry, he must know what the construction is. Project management methodologies help the coordinator to plan and manage the phases for completing his project.

Organization

A project coordinator’s main responsibility is to coordinate and organize the tasks in order to complete the project on time and within budget. Design, procurement, and production activities must be organized by the project coordinator.

Although the role of the project coordinator varies from company to company or project to project, tasks emphasized in this article are typically expected to accomplish by project coordinators. Project coordinators should possess leadership, communication, knowledge, organization, and other related skills for managing their projects successfully.



Summary

Project coordinators are the team leaders who guide the team from the initial planning phase to the closeup. The authority level of a project coordinator within the organization depends on the type of organizational structure.

In this article, we discuss key project coordinator skills and project coordinator responsibilities. If you would like to add or share something, you can do so through the comments box below.

See Also

Business Service Management

Project Coordinator vs Project Expeditor

List of Technical Skills

Further Reading

Core competencies of a successful project manager

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2 Comments
  1. Avatar for Linda Rochelle
    Linda Rochelle 3 years ago

    The project coordinator monitors each stage throughout the life cycle and ensures that critical information is shared among various team members , thank you for sharing.

  2. Avatar for NPB Technologies
    NPB Technologies 8 months ago

    Considering the high demand for skilled project directors, it’s no surprise that the salaries in this field are competitive and reflective of the responsibilities they undertake.

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