I’ve never really got on well with project managers despite managing projects myself.
And I think it’s down to the sheer diversity of management styles and what people think are the actions of a project manager versus what is genuinely needed to manage a project. However, I suddenly realised that the exact definition of a project manager has been staring me in the face and you will forgive me if this exists already, but it’s only just come to me.
So your project is a car journey, and a project manager is the Co-pilot. They plan the route, They keep a second eye on the petrol gauge. They arrange any changes to the car and book it in for repairs if needed, They ensure the rest of the occupants of the car are doing well, and if necessary they eject a passenger if they can’t behave.
In short they are the person that facilitates keeping the project on the road and going at the right speed in the right direction.
However what the project manager is not:
The Driver: This is the business or information technology, you can show this by the fact that if the project manager is missing, the car journey would still continue. It would eventually get there. It might get lost a few times, It might run out of petrol. It might even stall, and a number of terrible things might happen to it, arriving late and in bad shape. But it will still reach the goal.
The Passenger: They are not the passenger in the back. Their role is not to merely say “Are we there yet?, Are we there yet?” and “Drive faster, Drive faster!”
So as a project manager, if you ever wonder why your requests for status updates are ignored, look at your actions and try and determine if your are a co-pilot on the journey, or just a passenger.