If a PM screws something seriously and doesn’t care or expects others will straighten things up he should change the job.

But yes, from time to time you can meet this breed. Then run if you can – doing projects with them isn’t anything close to pleasure, that’s for sure.

I hope that this example is not common, but I heard similar stories from my friends.

If PM helps his developers they will do much more for him in return.

When PM makes a mistake (e.g. with schedule) it’s not his problem – it’s a problem of whole team.

The same is when an architect screw a piece of software architecture or a developer inject some crappy code to an application. These are problems of whole team not architect or developer respectively.

Of course there’s no point in being bossy but pain will be distributed all over the team anyway. And if you’re not willing to help your PM (and as a consequence you don’t expect that others would help you with your problems) you’re not working in a great team.

Situation that bothers me the most is when PM makes mistake (e.g makes wild schedules without consultations) and expect developers to do be heroic and solve his problems.

I’m not sure if 5-minute meeting is always enough although definitely time wasted on unnecessary gatherings should be limited as much as possible. On the other hand you won’t close discussion on architecture just because you already spent ten minutes digging the subject.

I think it’s enough when PM remembers he may be wasting the time of the rest of team each time he trying to get people do something for him. It doesn’t have to be true automatically, but then PM makes his decisions more consciously.

- What are you doing?
- Do you need anything from me?
- Yell if you need me.

Of course, project manager alone can’t run all tasks. Risk management with no feedback from the team brings virtually no value. Actually all project supporting tasks which are performed by the team, if done reasonably, fall far from my definition of crap.

By the way I think a discussion what is and what is not crap which should be moved out of the way could be pretty interesting. It would be basically discussion about techniques we believe are valuable and those we consider unimportant.

But I do not completely agree with your last sentence. In my opinion, the team is also responsible for project success and is therefore automatically involved in project management. For example in managing risks. They should report risks to the PM if they discover them. They are also planning their own work, which is project management.

I’m not sure if every PM would agree but that’s how I understand project management job. The best way to get things done is to remove any obstacles on the way of people who do the actual work.

Project management is auxiliary function. Often critical but still auxiliary.

And thanks for book recommendation.