Can a developer manage the project he's working on?

Question

We're a small company and we only have one project manager (me) and can't afford to hire another one. We have several projects running and I can't manage them all. Is it possible to have one of the developers manage the project he's working on. The developer will not develop the plan, I will do it, but he will just oversee the plan, manage the resources, and make sure that the tasks are on schedule.

Is this achievable without causing a serious setback to his productivity?

Answer 1

This is a very bad idea. Project managers shouldn't work as developers and developers shouldn't work as project managers. These roles MUST be completely separate.

A project manager who's doing development tasks will not be good at these tasks and will not be good at his primary role of a project manager. A project manager just doesn't have enough time to do actual development work ON a project, and if he has enough time on his hands, this means that he's not doing his job properly.

Companies shouldn't get cheap when it comes to complete role separation.