In your article, "Repeat after me: 'Yes I can run your project'", (17 October, page 44), you highlighted the requirement for project managers to be more focused on relationship management in their approach, and to be less process-driven.
The role of the project manager is to deliver the project successfully. Although the criteria for success will vary from project to project according to the client's requirements, the underlying needs usually revolve around function, time, cost and quality. Of those elements, the two things that really stick in the throat if they run out of control are cost and time. Yes, if the building looks good at the end of the day, it can be perceived as a success. However, if costs have spiralled because of design changes, and the tenant couldn't set up shop when he needed to because the unit wasn't completed, then the only professionals to benefit are the lawyers.

That is why we have procedures and processes – not to enforce red tape but to provide confidence and accountability.

For a firm like Davis Langdon & Everest, the business structure and approach today is much more than just quantity surveying. The firm employs individuals from the design, engineering, legal, accounting, property management, risk management, research, planning, building surveying and business consultancy fields, and provides a far more integrated approach to the management of projects.

The crucial element is the ability of the project manager to be able to stand back from the project when things aren't quite going to plan, and to assess the problem and come up with an answer. But if the chosen solution is wrong commercially, who will carry the can when it comes in over budget and six months late? Having a commercial understanding is therefore crucial, and although I would submit that some project managers may be more creative than others, getting the job done successfully is surely the most important requirement.

Postscript

James Hamilton, Davis Langdon Project Management.