Return to the roots?

Kunal had a question on which I commented earlier. Now, I am finding myself in a similar (but not exactly the same) predicament.

For those people who know about me, I am a programmer. Even though I try to learn other aspects of software development (like project management, process etc.), what I identify myself with is programming.

Some time back in the year 2007, I got into project management by choice, and my company gave me the opportunity to get involved in project management. Of late, I've come to realize that I may not be a good project manager for the following reasons:

1. Not creating enough

As a project manager in my current setup, I hardly create anything. Basically, I love to create. (Music is my other passion; I used to compose many songs for a children & youth group, but not much happening now-a-days in that front too.) And, when I come to a stage in my life when I don't create something useful, I become rather sad!

2. Managerial skills?

I believe it's totally my fault in not having a clear expectation of what project management means (or to be more precise, what project management means in a particular setup). For example, with a team that has a high technical & domain skills, superb intra-team & client communication, the project manager doesn't have much of work REALLY. In that case, it makes sense for such a PM to take up the responsibilities of his superior (could be revenue management, business development, new process initiatives.) But with a team that's not that technical and / or not with enough bandwidth in terms of client communication, the PM's role becomes more deeper. i.e. the PM ideally does some heavy lifting by taking part in the requirements AND design, apart from the usual status reports, tasks allocation, adhoc client calls etc.

This is where my problem was. I belonged to a team of the first type, but still I was not willing to accept the fact that I should be sharing the responsibilities of my superior. (I'm still not willing to do so, since there's not much scope to be really productive.) So, I give an impression that I'm not good at project management.

3. Ethical reasons!

I think this heading is self-explanatory, so I don't want to dig deeper.

Ultimately, when we keep doing something we don't love, we end up hurting ourselves real bad in long term. Maybe, I should return to my roots!