It just will take too much time, or it will take additional time
to achieve the same level of proficiency, as of each specialist.
So, this project manager feel competent and independent.
So, now, he/she can hire others to do the parts.

Such project manager can save a situation, when somebody
quits in the middle of development. He/she can’t be fooled
by a specialist, who say that it does not possible.

Any other way to manage leads to “administrative” kind
of management. There is no one in the team, who
really knows how this damn thing works, and no one
who takes responsibility on the whole. I see such
model every day.

I think, my big principle here is as follows:

I can be a project manager, if and only if I potentially
can do ALL THE WORK MYSELF. In other words, I
have a full picture of the project and of every small part.
Now, for the sake of efficiency and cost effectiveness,
I can afford myself to buy a services of specialists.

I prefer one man studio and simpler project, than
5 people team and a complex project.

If not one man studio, then maximum 2. Both are
generalists.

Another strategy is to make things simple and modular,
to be ready for changes in the project. Just from the
start I think of how I will introduce dramatic changes
later, so on the code level, HTML for example, I make
everything as CMS approach, headers, footers, insertions.
I can rebuild and recompile, and change structure and
navigation of 50 pages website in less than 1 day.

On the issue of process, my problem is when the decision making process degrades into a multi-dimensional tug-of-war by parties that don’t have enough information to make any decision, let alone the “right” one. ( sometimes there is only the not-so-bad decision out of many bad ones )

I am interested in changing the landscape so that the problem disappears – evaporating cloud anyone ? ( TOC )

I am exactly talking about the hiring, training, and retaining “processes” in a company. These are the processes that need to be changed, or evolved as I like to call it. Evolution implies gradual change which leads to overall improvement.

Process is not about distrust. Even though many managers put processes in place because they don’t trust their teams. There is a reason why they don’t trust their teams. They hire crappy teams. Of course, when building a team one should not hire 2 strongly willed people of opposing personalities, and place them in positions where they will vye for political advancement. Of course, it is never the manager’s fault when this happens, even if he/she personally were involved in the hiring process.

What you are saying rings very true and you have a knack for putting things clearly, it seems!

Secondly, as you bring up process. Process is one of those nasty many-headed beasties. In general if you are dicussing process as it applies to yourself things are fine and healthy. When you start talking process as it applies to somebody else it typically means that you do not trust that somebody else to do his or her job correctly. This changes when not trusting people to do their jobs is an institutional virtue (CMM 5 type orgs). When a typical organization and team has management talking “process” though it usually means that management has no faith in that team. The long term solution is then to rethink how hiring, training, and retaining is done.