Managing a project is so often compared to conducting an orchestra the comparison is almost a cliche. It seems to me that the comparison is rather off.
An orchestra has had time to rehearse and practice over and over exactly what they are supposed to do. Indeed, they must refine their work until it is flawless. A project team hasn't got that luxury. It has only one pass at executing the project.
An orchestra will never be asked to work faster or redo a task. There is no such thing as crashing the music. Project teams have deadlines to meet and often need to redo work and work faster than normal. An orchestra performance is an operation. It is perhaps the smoothest of operations. There is no change of plans. The audience's (stakeholders) mood will not change what the orchestra will play or how they play it.
There is a slight similarity between conducting an orchestra and managing a project. The similarity lies in the fact that both the conductor and the project manager do not make the actual product. They simply orchestrate the work of those who produce.
But then again, why pick on a conductor as the focus of an analogy? Every orchestra presentation has an actual project manager orchestrating it, scheduling the rehearsals, picking the team, selecting alternate members.
And that person is not the conductor.
