Project Managers Are People, Too!

Mark Mullaly is president of Interthink Consulting Incorporated, an organizational development and change firm specializing in the creation of effective organizational project management solutions. Since 1990, it has worked with companies throughout North America to develop, enhance and implement effective project management tools, processes, structures and capabilities. Mark was most recently co-lead investigator of the Value of Project Management research project sponsored by PMI. You can read more of his writing at markmullaly.com.

  Resource Management  

We hear a lot about work-life balance. The need to find a sense of wholeness, meaning and purpose in what we do is considered to be important. Finding a happy medium between work time and personal time is considered critical. At least, this is the stated ideal and expectation.

The reality for most of us is more complicated, particularly when we’re a project manager. For many, the role is seemingly without any semblance of balance whatsoever.

To a certain extent, that’s by—if not design—a bizarre form of natural selection. I genuinely believe that most of those who find the role of project manager attractive do so in part because it’s an unending series of interesting, different and often difficult challenges. No one day is like the next (nor is it in any way predictable how today is going to unfold based upon what happened yesterday). Variety, challenge and uniqueness are the order of the role, and that is what is appealing to so many.

At the same time, ongoing challenges and a constant shifting of goals, priorities and problems are not without their own levels of stress. And project management is a stressful role. On a good day, it stays at a level of stress that is engaging and stimulating. On a bad day, the stress subsumes us in an overwhelming tsunami of crises and problems, leaving us questioning our ability to even tread water.

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