Can Project Manager be an individual contributor role?

Thanks Mohammad Aasif Kazi for your inputs.

Very nice explanation. But I don't agree with your first paragraph about the project manager role. It's all depends on what kind of organisation structure the project is in. Not all the time project team is reporting to line managers and PM's primary duties include communication which includes reporting.

Anyway in my opinion a single person project team is possible with a Project Manager if the requirement of the project scope is like that. Project management is flexible and can accommodate various scenario including single human resource too.

As I already said I have seen projects with a single team member, some of them with a project manager others without.

I even remember a funny story where a former colleague of mine was working by himself on a project but there were 3 managers involved: his line manager, the project manager assigned to the project and the program manager. The involvement of these managers however was minimal.

I also met a lady (technical expert) working for a very large corporation that was about to deliver a project by herself this time without a PM. The project was not complex. The customer already had a software implementation and just wanted some improvements (change requests). Can we call that lady a PM just because she did all the work on the project (including the project management work)? I don't think so.

When I said direct reports I meant subordinate employees. I know that this depends on the type of organization but I have worked as a contractor for many organizations and I have never heard of an employee to be subordinated to the PM. This doesn't even make sense since the employee can move from project to project and can even work on two or even more projects simultaneous.