Just changed my mind about hiring a full time project manager

Honestly, I ran my small agency for 4 years without one, thinking I could handle the scheduling and client calls myself. Tbh, I was convinced it was a waste of salary. What changed it was a project for a brewery in Austin that went off the rails last quarter; we missed two deadlines because I was spread too thin. My lead developer finally sat me down and said, 'You're the bottleneck, Rob.' We brought on a PM on a 3-month trial, and our on-time delivery rate went from 65% to 92%. Has anyone else made a similar hire later than they should have? What was the tipping point for you?

3 comments

3 Comments

evand652mo ago

Oh man, I feel seen. I was the world's worst bottleneck for way too long.

mark_fisher482mo ago

Honestly, the worst part is when you're the bottleneck on tiny stuff that shouldn't even matter. Like needing to approve a font change or sign off on a social media post before it can go live. It creates this weird traffic jam where people are just waiting on you for something trivial, while the actual important work piles up behind it. You don't even realize you're doing it until a whole project grinds to a halt over something silly.

bailey.sandra5d ago

The traffic jam thing is exactly how I felt until I set up a simple rule for myself. I started automatically approving anything that took less than 5 minutes of my time to review, unless it was obviously broken. That one change cleared up so many of those tiny logjams and let me focus on the bigger stuff that actually needed my input.