Project Manger and his respomsibilities

The position of project manager  gives lot of pleasure when given the opportunity to handle the entire project as in charge. While start executing the project the problems face by project managers are huge in spite of huge freedom enjoyed by him. Who is a project  manager and what are all his responsibilities?, While doing the estimates for quoting certain works the team of business sales persons collect the input data’s from various departments involved in the project to access the amount of expenses the company may have to spend on account of various departments. Based on the inputs the project quote is prepared and with various discussions and clarifications the project is awarded to the winning bidder .Once the bid is awarded to the winning bidder the company is legally responsible with respect to the terms and conditions agreed by the company during discussions with the owner. The owner/clinet inform the winning bidder through a letter/ mail their willingness to accept the company to execute the work for them. This mail is called as letter of acceptance (LOA or LOI in some cases)  Based on the LOI the company starts their work. The first step the company does is to nominate a person who will take the responsibility of executing the total work as agreed by his company. This person is named as project manager of the project. Based on the priced quoted by the company the details are handed over to project manager for his review. The input details prepared by the sales department are called as estimates quoted which is already agreed and approved by all the responsible persons. Based on the estimates handed over by the sales the project manager starts his work. He is authorised to change any part of the estimate according to his convenience and flexibility keeping the bottom line of the company in tact. At the end of the day the project manager is totally responsible for the successful execution of the project satisfying the client and keeping the company’s profit in position. The budget prepared by the project manager is called as control budget in many companies. When the project starts the project manager conduct a meeting inviting all department in charges involved in the project along with the nominated sub ordinate by him to assist him in his daily activities while executing the project. His assistant is called as project engineer. He will be helping the project manager in getting the inputs from various departments, correspondence with clients . In normal cases the project engineer will be a junior level person who in turn will be groomed as a future project manger. The meeting conducted by the project manger is named as kick off meeting. Or it can be called as introductory meeting since the company management officially declare the nomination of the project manger to all the team members. Clock start rolling  for the project manger..The team members from various departments who will   be associated with this particular project and how much duration they will be available for the project. The number of persons anticipated for the project along with the duration is a prefixed data since the details are initially spelt out by them to the sales department while quoting for the project. In case if the project manger wants to have some change in man power he can do it and subsequently the additional cost implication must be offset by him in other. The second step in the execution of the project is introduction of the project manager to the owner/ client and makes them clear that the project manger will be responsible from the executing company’s side for the project. The owner will have a single point responsibility so that all the details/problems are discussed with him and solution for the problems if any are to be solved by him. On introduction of project manger to the owner through sales department of the company they detach from the link and the project manger connect the link. The project manger insists for the contract with the owner/client. The contract document prepared by the owner/ client is viewed and commented by the project manger and describencies if are brought to the knowledge of sales persons and along with the sales persons the matter is persuaded with client and incorporated  covering the interest of the company. From that time onwards the project manger co ordinates with different departments and periodical check up of control budget is conducted. If any differences are found conduct meeting with departments and get it corrected. Once the work pick up co ordination for the onsite work also the responsibility of the project manger. A man responsible to take care of the site activities is called as construction manger/ site incharge.The site in charge  will be totally stationed at site and will be executing site works and sent reports on daily basis to the project manager. The problems at site while executing the project is total responsibility of the construction manger. However resources to carry out the site work in.a successful way is to be organised by the project manger and it becomes his part of work..Even though site in charge works at site major decisions the owner/client approaches the project manger. With successful co ordination with every one when the project manger complete the project in schedule keeping in tact the profit of the company dealing and solving the issues of the project with clients satisfied opinion emerges out as a successful project manager 

Financial closure

The financial closure of the project is an arrangement to be done by the owner of the project before start of the project and to meet the financial requirements of the project from the beginning until commissioning and start of production of the project. Normally the project takes off its full momentum on completion of the financial closure since parties involved in executing the projects are secured of their money for the responsibility entrusted to them. .Project finance is the long-term of finance of infrastructure and industrial projects based upon the projected cash flows of the project rather than the balance sheets of its sponsors. Usually, a project financing structure involves a number equity investors and group of investing banks or other lending institutions that provide loans  to the operation of the project..Commonly while the bankers and lending institutions provides the loan the borrower cannot be heldresponsible for any amount in excess of the security for the loan, even if the value of such  security falls below the level it  had been anticipated for it at the time of the allotment of  loan , which are secured by the project assets and paid entirely from project cash flow, rather than from the general assets or credit worthiness of the project sponsors, a decision in part supported by financial modeling  The financing is typically secured by all of the project assets, including the revenue-producing contracts. Project lenders are given legal claim of theproperty to secure the payment of a debt or the satisfaction of an obligation   on all of these assets and are able to assume control of a project if the project company has difficulties complying with the loan terms.

Generally, a special purpose entity  is created for each project, thereby protecting other assets owned by a project owner from the damaging effects of a project failure. As a special purpose entity, the project company has no assets other than the project. In order to satisfy the lending companies or lending banks it becomes most important from the owner for their  Capital contribution to show that their company is financially sound and capable to take up the project. In general project financing has been most commonly used in the, transportation, telecommunications industries as well as sports

The  most important component of the project finance is to analyses the elements of  risk involved in the project. A project may be subject to a number of technical, environmental, economic and political risks. Particularly in developing countries and emerging markets the elements of risks are high "Several long-term contracts such as used to align incentives and deter opportunistic behaviour by any party involved in the project.  The patterns of implementation are sometimes referred to as "project delivery methods .Further the risks cannot be born only by owner can be distributed among number of parties involved in the project along with sharing the profit of the project with parties taking part in the project by sharing it with  construction, supply, off-take and concession agreements, along with a variety of joint-ownership structures. There are several parties in a project financing depending on the type and the scale of a project. The most usual parties to a project financing are;

1.   Sponsor (owner of the project)

2.   Lending institutions  and banks lending loans

3.   Financial Advisors

4.   Technical Advisors

5.   Legal Advisors

6.   Debt Financiers

7.   Equity Investors

8.   Regulatory Agencies

9.   Multilateral Agencies

The lending institutions and financing Banks do not hand over the entire finance of the project in a single stage. The finance required for the project is released on stages so that the project progresses in proper way and can be finished on schedule.

A riskier or more expensive project may require limited recourse financing secured by a surety from sponsors. Limited recourse lending was used to finance maritime voyages in ancient Greece and Rome. Its use in infrastructure projects dates to the development of the Panama Canal, and was widespread in the US oil and gas industry during the early 20th century. However, project finance for high-risk infrastructure schemes originated with the development of the North Sea oil fields in the 1970s and 1980s. Such projects were previously accomplished through utility or government bond issuances, or other traditional corporate finance structures.

The new project finance structures emerged primarily in response to the opportunity presented by long term power purchase contracts available from utilities and government entities. These long term revenue streams were required by rules implementing PURPA, the Policy resulted in further deregulation of electric generation and, significantly, international privatization following amendments to the Public Utilities Holding Company Act in 1994. The structure has evolved and forms the basis for energy and other projects throughout the world.