What is a Project Manager?
I spent the first ten years of my career in higher education, doing work that is in retrospect wildly applicable to any entry-level project management role... and yet, the number one question (by far) that I get whenever talking to someone from my time in higher ed is: "So... what is a project manager, anyway?"
Well... let's back up. The PMBOK (this is an affiliate link! but if you don't already own the PMBOK, I highly recommend it as a first step for getting serious about learning about PM) defines a project as "a temporary endeavor undertaken to create a unique product, service, or result." A project manager is a person who oversees that temporary endeavor. They typically make a project plan by organizing and scheduling the work, and they're typically also responsible for making sure that the project doesn't go over budget, take too long, or under- or over-deliver. They might or might not actually perform much of the work (this is heavily dependent on where they work - factors like how big the team is, what the PM's skillset is compared to the work the team is doing, etc). Ultimately, they're responsible for the finished deliverable -- that is, the "unique product, service, or result" described above. (That responsibility, by the way, is a key piece of answering the question "Do I want to be a project manager?")
What does a project manager do?
If we think about all the different pieces of work that go into a project as we defined it above, it becomes really clear that we need a team, and that this team is probably going to be made up of lots of different types of people. Some of these people will be subject-matter-experts (or what we call SMEs): these are people who have a deep expertise in a topic (like marketing, or artificial intelligence, or intellectual property) and who use that expertise to contribute to the project. Some of these people will be executors: these are the people doing the work on the ground, like graphic designers or software engineers or construction crews. Some of these people will be administrators: folks whose jobs are to facilitate and support the rest of the folks on the team.
You can imagine that once a project team gets past about 3 people, it's going to be really, really difficult for everyone on the team to be sure of what's going on, what changes are being made, what progress looks like... all of the "meta-work" that happens alongside the work of writing a software package, or building a house.
This "meta-work" is where the project manager comes in. They manage the project by making sure everyone on the team is very clear about their roles, their priorities (especially when things change), and the progress toward done. They keep the project on track (by which we mean "on schedule" and "on budget", the two most important metrics to a project manager), and they document learnings throughout.
Everything in the world is made out of projects, which means that project managers exist in every field. If you can dream it, someone has turned it into a project and managed it!
Project management is a team sport
So that's the textbook answer. My non-textbook answer is that project management is a team sport. You've heard your entire life that "soft skills are just as important as hard skills", yes? That is truer in project management than any other hat that I wear. Imagine the communication that goes into any of the above: most of the time, a project manager needs help understanding how much time, effort, and money goes into each piece of work that supports completing a project.
For example: I work with programmers and graphic designers every day. Over the years I have gotten better at estimating how long it will take them to complete something, but I still need to constantly check in with them due to the number of times that my brain thinks "moving this box a bit to the left" will be a quick endeavor, only to be informed that I had better build a day into my project plan to account for it. There is an art to asking "so that takes an entire day?" without coming across as if you think that it couldn't possibly.
What if I'm not sure PM is for me?
The thing about project management is that it can be a job title, or it can be a non-specific practice that can be applied across fields and disciplines. For the record, I think that most people I've worked with in coordinator-level roles in non-profit spaces could benefit from learning about project management practices. You do not have to become a professional Project Manager to understand how scheduling, scoping, and stakeholder management (just as a few examples... there are many more!) can generally improve the execution of your initiatives.
That said... you could become a professional project manager. With many notable exceptions, I think PM is rife with gate-keeping... and, as is so often the case, the most insidious gate-keeping comes from within:
"I could never do that. I don't have an MBA." (You don't need one!)
"All I know is non-profit. I could never go corporate." (Lots of PM work is non-corporate!)
"Nothing I do is transferable - the types of programs I plan don't happen outside higher ed." (I have too many pushbacks on this to articulate... but give me a little bit, I just started this blog.)
Motivational Interviewing's Stages of Change model conceptualizes the Contemplation stage as thinking about making a change, but not yet committed. The Preparation stage, which follows, is characterized by having committed to making change, and preparing to follow through on that decision.
If you found me during your Contemplation stage ("Should I change jobs? What could I even do if I didn't do this?"), I hope that you will sincerely receive my invitation to follow along with what I do with curiosity and hope. I am all but certain that much of what I discuss will be helpful to you and supportive of your professional development if you never change jobs again.
But, again... you could change jobs. You could become a professional project manager. And a could is, of course, not a should. It's just an open door. You don't have to walk through yet, if you don't want to... I'm happy to report back on what you'll see when you walk through it. But I do hope that you let that little could keep you warm. It's powerful, you know? You are powerful, whether or not you choose to become a project manager. And either way... now you know how I'd answer, were you to become one and were someone to ask you: "What does that even mean?"