In 2012 I was an infrastructure engineer at Facebook. Up to that point I had the typical IC's view of project managers as worthless, typical bureaucracy, etc. All the stereotypes. In fact we were proud of working without PMs in our group at that point.<p>Word came of a significant new feature for the site, one which would require a lot of extra data to be backed up, and at such quantities we couldn't use our existing system. So it required significant changes to our backup architecture as well as coordination with several product teams to ensure we got it right and that it was ready for launch—as you can imagine, not having functional, tested backups was a blocker. To ensure a timely finish, management brought in a recently acqui-hired project manager. There were literal groans when it was announced (I was probably one of them).<p>What a revelation! It turns out all those stereotypes were actually true, and the PMs I'd worked with in the past were actually as indecisive, unnecessary, and hobbled as I thought. Here, by contrast, was somebody who brought competence and execution to the table. Among the delightful things she did:<p>- First things first, she <i>managed the project.</i> (So many project managers don't actually do this!) By this I mean she talked to all the teams involved, got a sense of what everybody thought had to happen, summarized it, collated all the teams' takes, and presented it back to us, and got buy-in or objection. Repeatedly.<p>- All meeting organization was handled by her. Not as a secretary—excuse me, <i>administrative assistant</i>—but in the sense of cajoling insular and disparate teams to agree that they should talk, and what the topic would be; as well as scoping the topics ahead of time so we had some common ground to start talking.<p>- While she wasn't an engineer, she had some technical experience, enough to understand the shape and implications of architecture decisions. And the price tag.<p>- A perfectly blasé attitude (cheerful and uncaring). Why is this good? Many of the team leads involved were that toxic combination of sexist and dismissive of "non-techies." (This was 2012, so "bro culture" was in full swing.) I personally witnessed her get smacked in the face with this attitude day after day. Rather than withdrawing or complaining, her response was a shrug and, "Your funeral." She was able to do this both because of her amazing personal attitude and because she actually did have the confidence of higher-ups, and knew if she reported "We're blocked because team X won't cooperate" it would be taken seriously and wrath directed appropriately. I think this attitude would serve anybody well in the same role, be they man, woman, or anything between or aside.<p>What didn't she do? She didn't use named business school techniques. Agile was a weird and mostly-forgotten nerd rant published eight years before and not yet rediscovered. No Waterfall, no points, no scheduling, no Cycle Analysis, no JIRA, none of that. What made her so effective was that every day, she asked, "What can I do as a coordinator to make this project successful?" And then she did it.<p>The project launched on time with functional backups.