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.
• The project manager doesn’t do the project work. The project manager does the project managing.

Today, I want to look at one of the fundamental ways we maintain control on a project. As we’ve already seen, control is impossible without awareness. So we’ll also look at one of the ways we gain awareness in the project. The concept I am looking at today is: Only work a project team member is doing on something assigned by the project manager is project work.

We know we need both awareness and control. One of the clearest and simplest way of gaining awareness is for the project manager to assign all work that takes place on the project. Indeed, this is one of the purposes of the project manager role – to allocate the work sensibly, without doing it himself.

But by assigning work, the project manager is also taking control. By doing this, he or she is demonstrating to the project team that only work assigned like this is work on the project. Thus, assigning work gives a project manager both awareness and control.

And that gives us our project management concept: Only work a project team member is doing on something assigned by the project manager is project work.