I’ve been giving some thought recently as to what lies behind the work we do as project managers. Too often we get caught up in the tools and techniques, the how of what we do, without looking at the concepts and ideas behind it, the why of what we do.

So far, I’ve suggested that:

• The primary aim of every project is to benefit the business.
• Project management is about making the project environment as stable as possible. What is possible varies.
• Project management needs both awareness and control of the project. Control is impossible without awareness.
• The project manager can control time taken, money spent, and scope fulfilled – but only within set limits.
• The project team is a project’s most important resource. Guard them well, to allow them to get one with their tasks.

Today I want to look at something related to the last concept. We already know we need to protect the project team, and make sure they can get on with the tasks assigned to them. But this also means we need to get on with the tasks assigned to us, the job of project management. The concept I am looking at today is: The project manager doesn’t do the project work. The project manager does the project managing.

Project management is hard work. On all but very small projects, it is a full-time job. And that means you really shouldn’t be being pulled off to do project work.

I’m not saying that project managers don’t have the skills to do some of the project work. Many of us will have worked our way up to project management through project work – we are used to it, and we understand it.

But if a project manager is doing the work, then he isn’t managing the project! We need to remember where our skills lie. Often we will get dragged into doing the project work, but this is a failure of project management (usually on the organisation’s behalf, not the project manager’s), not an essential part of it.

Make sure you are using appropriate resources to get the work done. The project manager is rarely an appropriate resource! And that gives us a project management concept: The project manager doesn’t do the project work. The project manager does the project managing.

(Having said that, I have ended up doing project work for the vast majority of projects I have worked on. This isn’t a good thing, but it is the real world. You should aim to avoid this if at all possible.)