Does anyone here work in Project Management and if yes, how much do you work with people? Do you interact with people on a daily basis-face to face or mostly over the phone and emails? What about the public interaction? Do you have a high level of dealing with the public? Is it mostly office work or are you out in the feild more? I had one class in Operations Management and one week (out of the 6 weeks) we did Project Management work.
In the (major) bank I work in, it is the Operations Manager that oversees a group of people which varies from 3 to 25 depending on the level of the job(s). This manager deals a lot with people and has to take escalation calls from upset clients,etc all the time. S/he has to deal with other departments when there is a problem or to suggest a better procedure. If the Operations Manager does not have people skills, s/he will not last long.
The Project Managers where I work never deal with people on the outside unless it has to do with computer systems personnel. That is if a new computer system is being implemented, it is the Project Manager’s job to consult with the Operations Managers to see how they want things setup. Then the Project Manager goes back to the maker of the computer software and asks them to reprogram things. This going back and forth and testing the new system can take many months. You deal with people but you deal more with project issues (computer software, new tasks, etc) than you deal with people’s personalities in an Operations Manager’s job. I hope this helps.
