One interesting aspect of a project manager’s responsibility is meeting customer expectations. I bring this up because this is something that I see my project manager deal with on a regular basis. Customer’s will often come to my manager with parameters for a custom product. He will then take this information and consult with the R&D and any other subject matter experts. Once a consensus is reached, the information is then brought to the processing/manufacturing team to see what available equipment can handle the customer’s request. Once all this information has been gathered and assimilated, my manager then returns to the customer and negotiates additional costs, development budget, and specification ranges. Being able to work with a customer is certainly a critical challenge faced by project managers.