“Of all our administrative staff, you’re the best paid by far.”
Ant from London is an experienced Project Leader, at his recent annual appraisal he was told this by the Director of People. It was meant kindly, motivational even, but it sums up one of the biggest misconceptions about project management. The idea that PMs are just administrators with fancy job titles.
Ant was fairly chilled out about the backhanded compliment, as PMs we know our value, his CIO took more of a dim view and gave the People Director a piece of his mind – we are with the CIO!
You may have heard similar…
“Project managers just babysit projects … shuffle Gantt charts … chase colleagues for updates … set up meeting after meeting…”
As provider of demand IT project talent, at Stoneseed we also hear lots of stereotypes like this: Project management is often misunderstood as a purely administrative function.
The reality? Project Management is a strategic discipline at the heart of successful business change and growth. Far from being box-tickers, PMs are often the difference between success and failure, they are leaders, risk managers, and business aligned outcome-drivers!
So, let’s bust some of the biggest myths! Let’s highlight what project managers actually do and explore how Stoneseed’s Project Management as a Service (PMaaS) model gives organisations flexible access to some of the most experienced PM talent in the industry.
BUSTING THE MYTHS ABOUT PROJECT MANAGEMENT
Myth 1: Project Managers just run schedules and meetings
Yes, project plans and status meetings are part of the role, but they are just the visible surface. In truth, a project plan is only a tool. Anyone who has ever delivered a transformation knows that no plan survives unchanged. Priorities shift, blockers appear, scope evolves, and dependencies bite.
This is where project managers prove their worth. They don’t just track updates; they adapt, reprioritise, and steer delivery forward in the face of complexity. When challenges hit, it’s often the project manager who calms the storm, rallies the team, and keeps eyes on the bigger picture.
Myth 2: Project Managers track value, they don’t deliver it
This view massively undersells the discipline. Skilled project managers create value by anticipating risks before they escalate, aligning stakeholders behind a shared vision, and making sure business change actually sticks.
They are the translators between strategy and execution, taking business intent and turning it into delivery reality. Without a PM, projects drift, budgets balloon, and outcomes stall.
Myth 3: A tool could replace them
We live in an age of dashboards, collaboration platforms, and automated reporting, so it’s easy to assume that software can “do project management.” Easy but flawed thinking, because while a tool can show you what’s late, it can’t tell you why. It can’t predict how clashing personalities might derail delivery, or how shifting political priorities in the business will impact scope.
Project managers bring something no software ever will: experience, foresight, and leadership. Tools are enablers, but it’s people who deliver business aligned outcomes.
Myth 4: Project Managers are a “cost centre”
Perhaps the most damaging misconception of all is that PMs are simply an overhead. In reality, they are investment multipliers. Great project managers prevent expensive overruns, spot efficiencies, and keep delivery aligned with business goals.
In many cases, they even uncover opportunities to increase value. By engaging stakeholders deeply, a project manager might identify adjacent needs or scope extensions that deliver additional revenue or ROI beyond the original project brief.
Far from being a drain on budgets, project managers protect and grow them.
WHAT GREAT PROJECT MANAGERS ACTUALLY DELIVER
Strip away these myths, and more, and what remains is a discipline that is both human and strategic. Behind every successful project is a PM who:
Drives outcomes – moving from intent to impact by weighing trade-offs, prioritising effectively, and making difficult decisions in line with organisational needs.
Manages stakeholders – ensuring IT, business units, and leadership stay aligned. This isn’t just communication, it’s diplomacy, influence, and consensus-building.
Controls risk – spotting issues early, creating contingencies, and ensuring challenges don’t derail delivery.
Enables collaboration – aligning technical experts, vendors, and business users around a shared vision, often without having direct authority over any of them.
This isn’t administration. It’s leadership hiding in plain sight!
WHY EXPERIENCE MATTERS MORE THAN EVER
And here’s the key point: in project management, experience counts.
It’s one thing to learn methodologies in theory. It’s another to apply them when budgets are tight, deadlines immovable, and stakeholders disagree on priorities. A newly certified project manager may know the frameworks, but when a multi-million-pound transformation gets stuck between two departments with conflicting interests, you want someone who has navigated waters like this before.
Experience is what allows project managers to:
-Sense issues before they’re visible on a dashboard;
-Adapt methodology to circumstance (knowing when to be flexible, and when to be firm);
-Read the room, influence decision-makers, and keep momentum when tensions rise.
At Stoneseed, every project manager in our PMaaS model brings not just certifications like PRINCE2, PMI, or Agile, but also years of hard-earned experience applying them across industries. From digital transformation to infrastructure upgrades and business change initiatives, our PMs have been there, done it, and learned what works.
That’s why clients trust them with business-critical initiatives. They don’t just follow process, they lead delivery with confidence, because they’ve faced similar challenges before and know how to respond.
Their decades of learned intuition and “calm under pressure” approach mean they often see risks and opportunities long before anyone else. That kind of insight only comes with experience, and it’s what Stoneseed clients value most about our PMaaS delivery model.
THE STONESEED PMaaS ADVANTAGE
IT projects are increasingly complex, multi-faceted, and high stakes. Flexible, experienced project management isn’t a nice-to-have, it’s essential. That’s exactly what Stoneseed’s Project Management as a Service (PMaaS) model delivers.
Flexible resourcing on demand – Scale project management capacity up or down to match delivery needs. Avoid the cost and risk of overcommitting to permanent hires.
Deep, versatile experience – Tap into a pool of seasoned project and programme managers with decades of delivery experience across transformation, business change, digital, and infrastructure.
Cost-effective without compromise – Pay only for what you need, whether that’s full-time, part-time, or project-based support. Control overheads without sacrificing capability.
Outcome-focused delivery – Our PMs are accountable for results, not just reporting. They ensure projects don’t just finish, but finish with business impact.
It’s project management as it should be – flexible, experienced, and laser-focused on outcomes.
FROM PERCEPTION TO IMPACT
The outdated perception of project managers as box-tickers and administrators no longer fit the reality of modern delivery, let’s be frank, they never did. Today’s PMs are experienced leaders who keep projects moving, manage risks proactively, and deliver measurable business value.
With Stoneseed PMaaS, organisations don’t just access project management resource. They access experience – the kind of experience that saves money, reduces risk, and ensures IT projects deliver the outcomes they were designed to achieve.
STOP MYTHING OUT!
Are you letting misconceptions that belong in the dark ages hold your business back?
Discover how Stoneseed’s PMaaS can put your IT projects in safe, experienced hands, aligning cost, outcomes, and expertise for real delivery success. Call 01623 723910 today.