In its most simple form a project manager does the following:

 

In essence the traditional Deming cycle of Plan-Do-Check-Act with a few name changes.

Key to the changes is that a project manager manages the project but does not do (most of) the project work himself.

 

In subsequent chapters we will delve deeper into each of these and provide more insight in what to do, how to do it, when to do it and most importantly why (or why not) to do it.

 

In all fairness we need to point out that the real things a project manager does can be be depicted as seen below:

 

 

We like to point out that the IPMA Competence Baseline (ICB®) provides a good overview of what a project manager is supposed to be able to do.