You Don’t Need a Full-Time Project Manager to Deliver an Organisation’s Projects Well

Not every organisation needs a full-time Project Manager.

But if you are delivering projects, somebody still needs to manage them.

In a lot of organisations, projects are simply picked up by people who already have another job. An Operations Manager gets a new system to implement. An engineer is asked to introduce new equipment. A team leader ends up running a customer project.

There is nothing wrong with that.

In fact, for a lot of an organisation’s projects, it is probably the right way to do it.

Where it starts to go wrong is when the project is just added to somebody’s workload and they are expected to get on with it.

No clear ownership. No real plan. No simple way of tracking what is happening. No regular point where someone asks whether the project is actually on track.

You do not need a load of project management process to fix that.

For many projects, the basics are enough:

• be clear what you are trying to achieve;

• make sure somebody owns it;

• agree the main activities and dates;

• keep track of actions, risks and decisions;

• review progress regularly.

That is project management.

The person doing it does not need Project Manager in their job title.

They do need enough time, authority and a basic understanding of how to keep a project under control.

There will obviously be a point where a project becomes too big, too risky or too complicated to manage this way and dedicated project management support makes sense.

But not every organisation needs a full-time Project Manager just because it has projects to deliver.

No Fluff takeaway

You don’t always need a full-time Project Manager. You do always need your projects to be managed.

For many of an organisation’s projects, that simply means giving someone clear ownership, enough time to do the job and a few practical tools to keep things under control.

The important bit is not the job title.

It is making sure somebody is actually managing the project.