Death to Project Managers

Can you imagine a world where a killer virus transmitted through Gantt charts wiped out the population of project managers? How would anything get done?

The short answer is - "by doing things differently" ... & "no".

But bear with me for a few paragraphs. Taking a leaf out of an old Edward de Bono book, simply imagine that project management as we know it is impossible & we have to find another way to get things done that does not involve the skills & techniques that we currently use.
If we had to reinvent the process, would it come out the same?

We don't have to reinvent. In fact, I've worked for several companies that don't have project managers - or they have one who doesn't get involved in projects directly.
Most variations on the Agile development methodology have no room for project management as such, because teams are self-directed.

You can see project management as a top-down approach to achieving a goal. It's quite traditional. Agile is always bottom-up. There's an assumption that the professionals doing the work know more than management about how to deliver the outcome - as long as they are empowered to make decisions & effect them, & have access to the information they need.

Admittedly, agile works best in small teams, but there have been many examples of teams of teams (layers of self-organising) where a team representative is the conduit to a higher level of abstraction. Certainly, if that higher level is concerned with business strategy, for example, then its membership is made of team leaders - those who can ensure the smooth working of the development team.

In this structure, project managers are not appointed to a project. Teams are assigned a business outcome. In some cases, teams own a product or a service, & their output is a part of the overall enterprise's offering - a direct contribution to the business' viability.

The alternative to project management is product management - not someone to ensure that deadlines are met, or to negotiate budgets; but someone to ensure that quality is defined relative to the business needs (usually associated with what an end-user expects), & can understand & articulate the requirements to the team & to management (to justify investment of time & materials).

Project managers have budgets. Product managers seek investment.

Product managers are invested in the product - the outcome - as is the team. Their passion is what drives the business' value proposition to their customers & investors in turn.

We can survive without project managers. For how long can a business survive without product managers?