The "Voice" of a Project

Every project is voiceless.

This might sound esoteric, and it probably is, but this helped me distill what a core function of a project manager is: A project manager acts as the project’s “voice”.

There are many activities and definitions of what a project manager is, but at a foundational level, I believe this is a good starting place.

Examples of what this “voice” can look like are shown below:

One way a project can have a "voice" is to report on it's health. This can be as simple as a Red, Yellow, Green status:

Everyone's organization will be on a different journey as it relates to Project Managers.

You may have a clear job description and 10+ headcount hired for that role.

Or you may have multiple versions of old job descriptions scattered in different teams and 1-2 people that have designated themselves as "project manager".

Or you may have none and are considering using a third party to do project management for you.

No matter where you are on the maturation journey and "formal" job descriptions, this core concept remains key: every project is voiceless until someone lends it their voice.