Organizational Project Management

My suggested redefinition of what it means to be a project manager has generated its fair share of praise, as well as criticism. Where there are faults, much lies with the idea that a project manager should have a level of authority, and that this undermines the idea of a team as a collective entity.

We need clarity about what it means to really be a project manager. It is important to know what this looks like, what is expected of us and what we should expect of others. While there is a lot of fuzziness in the world about project manager, this article provides some clear-cut answers.

Defining project management is a challenge rooted in the difference between ‘project doing’ and ‘project managing’. And, because it’s the results that we care about, we often place greater emphasis on what produces the results, not how the process of getting their is managed. How to clarify this distinction in a way that is meaningful.

One of the challenges in formalizing how we think about project managers is being clear about the project management role. While there are a lot of books and information of the subject, clear definitions are surprisingly absent. A lot of our understanding comes down to, “I will know it when I see it.” Why this needs to change.

Few people of us stood up at the beginning of our career and shouted, “I want to be a project manager!” And yet here we are. So how did this happen? And what does it mean? And what are the implications for the organizations that hire us?