The challenge of project management is that you're really just coordinating with folks and not necessarily doing things yourself. You're corralling different resources and watching time tables and all that fun stuff. But ultimately you aren't the one doing all the things that need to get done and you need to rely on others to do their part. I do not have a super great history of managing this well, especially when it comes to people outside my immediate influence.
In my school year I'd always dread group work since it meant that my grades would be dependent on other people. At least when I make mistakes on my own, I can beat myself up over those mistakes until the sun consumes the Earth. In group work the final output may not entirely be my thing and so it can get frustrating waiting for other people to send in their stuff or what have you. There were more than a few times I'd end up taking on more work because of this innate paranoia, hence me often volunteering to integrate everyone's work or related roles. That way I could edit what they submitted and ultimately make sure the final product looked good.
In the dynamic global workplace that we live in, a lot of times you'll end up working with people in different locations and even different parts of the world with different time zones and such. And so coordination can be even trickier no matter how much technology claims to have virtually made the world smaller. You can never quite replace being in the same room together to make sure things get done. And I am the sort of person who will literally breathe down your shoulder to check on how far along you are and asks the annoying question of when you might be done.
And I recognize that the stress really comes from the lack of control and not being able to do more in order to speed the process along. Sometimes you literally lack the skill set and thus must rely on the abilities of others to pull through and get things done in line with your deadlines and such. Knowing this doesn't make matters any less stressful but what can we do, right? Such is life.
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