The Project Managers

It is common to have individuals serve as project managers and
require also that they do part of the actual work in the project.
This is a certain prescription for problems. If it is a true team, consisting
of several people, the project manager inevitably finds herself
torn between managing and getting her part of the work done.
Naturally, the work must take precedence, or the schedule will
slip, so she opts to do the work. That means that the managing
does not get done. She hopes it will take care of itself, but it never
does. After all, if the team could manage itself, there would be no
need for a project manager in the first place (remember our argument
about whether project management matters?).
Unfortunately, when the time comes for her performance
evaluation, she will be told that her managing needs improving.
Actually, she just needs to be allowed to practice management in
the first place.
Yes, for very small teams—perhaps up to three or four people—
a project manager can do some of the work. But, as team sizes increase,
it becomes impossible to work and manage both, because
you are constantly being pulled away from the work by the needs
of your team members.
One of the reasons for this situation is that organizations don’t
fully understand what project management is all about, and they
think that it is possible for individuals to do both. The result is that
nearly everyone in the company is trying to manage projects, and,
as is true in every discipline, some of them will be good at it and
others will have no aptitude whatsoever. I have found that a far
better approach is to select a few individuals who have the aptitude
and desire to be project managers and let them manage a
number of small projects. This frees “technical” people (to use the
term broadly) to do technical work without having to worry about
administrative issues and allows project managers to get really
good at their jobs.