One of the big things here in state government for the State of Michigan is project managers. Project managers seem to be the latest fade. Every time you turn around, you run into a project manager.

We have official project managers, who work for the official project management section. Then we have unofficial project managers who work for the unofficial project management section.

The unofficial project managers manage projects that are too small for the official project managers. But, if the project is big enough, you might have an official project manager and 2 unofficial project managers. (the unofficial project managers dream of becoming an official project manager some day)

On a project that I was working on recently we had a project manager for the agency who needed a telephone system, a project manager for the vendor, a project manager for the subcontractor, a project manager for the equipment manufacturer, a project manager for my agency, an official state appointed project manager and the personal project manager for the Director. In short, we had more project managers than we had people actually doing the work.

The project that I am presently working on only has 6 project managers. I guess my project isn’t big enough to warrant more.

Two of the project managers work for the same boss. I guess one of the project managers is a backup in case something happens to the main project manager.

And what do these project managers do? As best as I can tell, the state project managers merely function as a brake to any progress that might take place on the project. They hold pointless, mindless meetings and constantly ask questions that are not at all relevant to the project. But, I guess if they knew what they were doing they wouldn’t be asking questions.