ARTICLE DRAWING / CMS DETAIL
Published in Project Management
Courtney
The Effective Project Manager
7 Things Senior PMs Do Instead of "Real" Work
The more senior I get, the less "real" work I seem to do.
I posted a Note a while back that said this:
The more senior I get, the less "real" work I seem to do. But I spend more time talking, strategising, unblocking, teaching, thinking, listening, stressing.
Turns out a lot of people felt that too.
But equally, a number of people feel that “real” work needs to have a more tangible, visible result. Lines on paper. Numbers in a spreadsheet. Sent emails and pdf documents.
So let's break it down. If your job has started to feel less like doing and more like everything around the doing, here's what's actually happening. Here’s why its important. Why it is real work. And how to get better at it.
1. Talking
Most conversations at work stay on the surface. Status updates. Quick check-ins. Nobody tells you the real problem because nobody asked a real question.
Why it's work: The most important project information almost never shows up in a status update. People give you the real info when they trust you enough to say "actually, this isn't going well." Getting people to that point takes real effort. It's not passive.
How to get better at it:
Ask questions that can't be answered with "fine" or "good." Try "what's the part of this project you're avoiding?"
Go quiet after you ask. Most people fill silence with the truth if you let them.
Follow up on small things people mention in passing. That's usually where the real issue lives. They’re just too scared to say it.
2. Strategising
Strategising sounds fun. And it sometimes is. But it's also the unglamorous work of deciding what not to do, so your team isn't pulled in five directions. Your team needs you to steer them away from danger as much as towards your goals.
Why it's work: Every hour your team spends on the wrong priority is an hour they don't get back. Picking the right priority, before anyone starts building, is what keeps that from happening. It just doesn't look like anything from the outside.
How to get better at it:
Before a planning session, write down the one risk that could sink the whole thing. Say it out loud in the room, even if it feels uncomfortable.
Approach risks this way: Ask "what happens if we do nothing here?" for every item on the list. If the answer is "not much," it's not a priority. Use your time elsewhere.
Revisit your strategy weekly, not quarterly. Things move faster than most plans account for.
3. Unblocking
Projects stall because of an accumulation of small blocks. The small, annoying things that nobody has time to chase down. And nobody takes responsibility for unlocking. A missing approval. A tool that's broken. A decision that's stuck between two people (this is a big one).
Why it's work: Clearing that one thing can unstick five other things at once. Unblocking is a top 1% skill.
How to get better at it:
Ask each person on your team, directly, "what's stuck right now?" Don't wait for it to show up in a meeting.
Go after the smallest blocker first. Momentum matters more than size.
Keep a running list of blockers you've cleared. It'll show you patterns, like the same person or process causing delays over and over.
Need More Help? 👏
My personal project risk matrix template
4. Teaching
When you solve a problem yourself, it's fixed once. When you teach someone else how to solve it, it's fixed every time it happens again, without you.
Why it's work: This is how you scale. You can only personally fix so many problems in a day. But if five people on your team can now solve that problem too, your impact just multiplied. It’s slower at first but faster in the long-term.
How to get better at it:
When someone brings you a problem, ask "what have you tried?" before you offer a solution.
Explain your reasoning out loud, not just your answer. People learn the "why," not the "what."
Let people make small mistakes when the cost is low. That's how the lesson sticks.
5. Thinking
Every good decision has invisible hours behind it. Time spent turning the problem over, checking your assumptions, imagining how it could go wrong. None of that shows up as a task. But skip it, and the decision usually shows.
Why it's work: A rushed decision costs more time later than a slow one costs now. The thinking is the work. It just happens before anyone can see the result.
How to get better at it:
Before a big decision, write down the assumption you're most unsure about. Go test it before you commit.
Give yourself a real deadline to decide, so thinking doesn't turn into stalling.
Talk the decision through with someone else, even just to hear yourself explain it out loud.
6. Listening
There's a difference between hearing someone's update and noticing what they left out. The second one takes work.
Why it's work: Problems show up first as a slight hesitation, a status that's a little too clean, a person who's gone quiet in meetings. Catching that early is what stops a small issue from becoming a big one. It takes emotional intelligence, and it takes work.
How to get better at it:
In update meetings, pay attention to tone, not just content. A flat "it's fine" is different from an actual fine.
Write down anything that feels slightly off, even if you can't explain why yet. Check back on it in a few days.
Ask people how they're doing separately from how the project is doing. The answers are often different.
7. Stressing
Someone has to carry the weight of "what if this goes wrong." If you're senior, that someone is usually you. Most of the time, your team never even knows it's happening.
Why it's work: Carrying that risk quietly is what lets your team move fast and stay calm. If you didn't absorb it, they would, and it would slow everyone down.
How to get better at it:
Name it, at least to yourself. "This week was heavy" is a valid thing to acknowledge, even if there's no task to point to.
Don't pass your stress downstream by accident. Check your tone before a hard conversation, not after.
Find one person, a peer or mentor, who you can be honest with about the weight. Carrying it alone isn't sustainable.
The pattern
Look at that list again. It’s about making other people's work possible.
Nobody warns you about this shift. You stop being the one who does the work. You become the reason the work gets done at all.
That's what the job looks like when you're doing it right.
