Navigating the Waves, Anchoring the Truth
"What do you do for work?"
"I'm a glorified babysitter."
Whilst this interaction produced laugher, it didn't do justice to the complexities this colleague was so skillfully navigating in their career. The Project Manager serves as the consolidator of all project data, ensuring stakeholders have access to a reliable narrative that is consistent and validated.
It's 9am at HQ, but the team is scattered across time zones. One stakeholder wants last week’s version, the devrlopment team is waiting for specs, and two meetings overlap. Enter: the Project Manager, armed with a Gantt chart, dry wit, a 4th cup of coffee, a 6th sense for spotting scope creep before it happens, an uncanny ability to decode passive aggressive emails, a color-coded spreadsheet that doubles as a crystal ball, and a near bottomless reserve of diplomatic patience.
Projects are like seas in which the waves, or varying aspects of the project, differ in their size and pace of movement, but all move toward a singular shared destination. They oversee - or oversea ha! - all aspects of a project, projecting with accuracy what's ahead, navigating its direction, chartering the multidisciplinary team of subject matter experts through turbulence, appositely pivoting to mitigate potential risk, as it navigates toward the shore where the project will be successfully delivered.
Because the Project Manager consolidates project data to ensure reliable and validated narratives are consistently accessible to and communicated with project stakeholders, it is essential they have a astute relationship with each aspect of the project's process, and the communication skills to clearly convey the project amidst what might be a rough sea of changed scope, stakeholders, deliverables, and resources.
Ideally, a masterful Project Manager brings calm to the sea, allowing team members (subject matter experts, researchers, business analysts, engineers, architects, developers, technicians, etc.) to focus on their individual roles and activities, confident in their leadership.
To Cite in APA7:
Drost, A.R. (2025). Project Management: Navigating the waves, anchoring the truth. The Braided Strategist. https://TheBraidedStrategist.com/articles/navigating-the-waves-anchoring-the-truth
Questions for consideration and discussion:
How does the metaphor of a project as a "sea" with varying waves reflect the challenges and dynamics of project management?
What qualities or skills are most critical for a Project Manager to "bring calm to the sea" and enable team members to focus on their roles?
What other original titles - such as "glorified babysitter" - have been assigned to Project Managers?
