Fundamentals of Project Management, Third Edition

The Big Trap—Working Project Managers

It is common to have individuals serve as project managers and require 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 will inevitably find 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 will 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 above about whether project management matters?). ...