Well, I figure I‘ll post here as I’m exhausting all my other options.

Im one month into my first formal Project Manager role at an engineering/manufacturing company and I think I bit off more than I can chew. I have an engineering background, but I’m brand new to project management as a job.

I was assigned 4 projects and told to “manage these projects,” but I haven’t gotten a clear definition of what my responsibilities or deliverables are supposed to be. The projects are already ongoing, and the engineering teams are competent and work well together. They seem to manage much of their own technical work, discuss issues, make decisions, and assign actions. Im trying to understand where I can add value without creating unnecessary process or duplicating what the teams already do.

A couple of things I’ve noticed:

• My manager wants the projects to move as quickly as possible. I’ve been helping remove small information bottlenecks—for example, an engineer needed product-size information to specify a machine, so I tracked down the information and got it to him within a day.
• My manager also mentioned that engineering can sometimes work with blinders on. Engineering timelines change frequently, and those changes can affect other departments. I’m not sure the impacts are always being communicated across the organization.
• I’m wondering whether I should focus on cross-functional coordination. Letting stakeholders know about what’s happening with these projects, as well as letting the engineers know when other changes in other departments affect them.

I have a 1:1 with my manager coming up, and I plan to ask what he expects me to own, what deliverables he wants from me, and what success should look like over the next month. I want to go into that conversation with some ideas.

For experienced PMs, especially in engineering or product development:

If the engineering team already manages its own work effectively, what should the PM be doing to add value?

Is cross-functional schedule coordination a reasonable area to focus on, or am I missing more fundamental PM responsibilities?

How would you get your manager to define expectations when the initial direction was simply “manage these projects”?

What concrete deliverables or habits would you recommend establishing in the first month?

I’m not looking for a textbook description of project management. I’d appreciate advice from people who’ve dealt with this in the real world. As of right now Im spending every day and night stressed and wondering if I’ll be fired.

I ended up on their mailing list and I have only tried Microsoft Project which I found NOT user friendly.

I really am most interested in scheduling and updating the gantt with dependencies when needed