A project assistant assists a project manager or project director with the tasks required to complete a project. This usually includes clerical and administrative duties. In the event that the project manager is unavailable, the project assistant may attend meetings and be responsible for answering questions. Depending on the scope of the project, the assistant may be assigned to a single job and project manager or may work with multiple managers on multiple projects at the same time.
The majority of a project assistant’s responsibilities are clerical and administrative in nature. Most projects, including time lines, budgets, and task lists, rely heavily on files and spreadsheets. Keeping these up to date, communicating the updates, and documenting changes are all important aspects of project management that usually fall to the assistant. Many businesses have specific rules about what needs to be documented and what needs to be kept in physical files.
Other types of paperwork are frequently delegated to the project assistant. This can include things like filling out purchase orders, requesting and filing insurance forms and permits, and more. It also frequently entails managing correspondence, such as providing the client with regular reports and updates.
The project assistant will also attend meetings and participate in conference calls on a regular basis. Internal team meetings as well as client meetings are common examples. In many cases, the assistant will be in charge of taking notes during the meeting and later developing and disseminating a meeting report. The identification of action items and the assignment of responsibility for each is an important part of such reports. It’s also crucial to keep track of deadlines.
While the project manager or director is usually in charge of making decisions, managing customer relationships, and ensuring that the project stays on budget and on time, the assistant must be aware of the project’s status at all times because he may be called upon to answer questions if the manager is unavailable. When a team member or a client, for example, requires information, project managers may be in meetings, sick, or on vacation. It’s crucial to know where to look for information.
These responsibilities will be carried out by a project assistant who is not dedicated to a single project but is instead responsible for supporting multiple managers or projects. This necessitates a highly organized assistant. He must also be able to prioritize responsibilities and determine what to do when the demands of two or more projects collide.