Why do other professions within the business look at Project Management with such disdain?

I work for an agency. I was at a corporate client yesterday for an all day meeting/presentation.

The PM on their side had two responsibilities the entire day: -Plan lunch -Organize and facilitate a technical break out session between us and then.

He ordered pizza for lunch. Two of the people at the meeting were highly lactose intolerant.

His idea of organizing the meeting was getting everyone into a room together and telling us to talk about the project. The meeting lasted 4 minutes because no one understood why we were there.

While I was on the plane home, I realized that this is one small but telling example of why PMs get a bad reputation from others on the corporate side.

My company also has PMs, and they are very driven, responsible people who we rely on to do more than poorly plan lunches and meetings. So it sucks for the good ones that the worthless people have to create an awful name for the profession. Especially on the corporate side.

/r/projectmanagement Thread