Do Project Managers Travel?

Are you considering a career as a project manager and wondering if the job involves travelling? We’ve prepared this helpful guide to project management and whether the job involves travelling.

Project management often involves a certain degree of travelling, especially for those who are managing large, multi-site projects. While much of modern-day communication is done remotely, travelling to sites is still necessary as project managers need to meet teams and monitor project progress.

Project managers often need to travel to sites to monitor project progress and meet project teams. Those who are managing projects in different cities or countries may be required to travel by plane.

While there are many modern forms of online communication, meeting face-to-face with project teams is often still necessary. There is often only a certain degree of benefit that can be gained from teleconferencing and online communication.

As such, it is often necessary for project managers to travel to sites to meet with project teams and stakeholders, whether in other cities or countries.

While project managers will likely be required to travel to sites on occasions and work from an office, there are a number of project management tasks that can be conducted from home. However, in most cases from home work for project managers is likely to be a rare occurrence, rather than a regular event.

Regular 'work from home' could hamper project progress. To ensure the efficient management of projects, project managers need to be an active presence, regularly engaging with project teams and monitoring project progress.

However, ‘work from home’ project management jobs do exist. In fact, remote project management is becoming more popular. Virtual project management brings a number of advantages to companies, including lower costs and less travel time.

So, while traditional project management may be viewed as the most effective approach to project management, ‘from home’ project management jobs do exist.

Project management has a reputation as a stressful job. Project managers are responsible for ensuring projects are delivered within time parameters, budgets and other requirements. They also have to manage crises and roadblocks. As such, managing projects can be a highly stressful endeavour.

Many things can go wrong in project management and they often do.

However, effective planning, teamwork and organisation can go a long way in reducing stress in project management. Good project managers utilise their training and experience to mitigate stress and ensure it is kept to a minimum.

Project managers do tend to travel. Visiting project sites and meeting teams is still often necessary, despite modern-day forms of communication. While there are virtual, ‘from home’ project management jobs out there, most project management jobs are not purely ‘work from home’ positions.