I’ve worked on freelance projects and I’ve worked with agencies. Often freelancers who with agencies are frustrated by the management and the “process”. More reviews, more check-ins, more standups, Slack communication, etc.
Many designers and developers feel that these things slow them down. They’re right. To a reasonable degree, these processes are designed to slow you down. They’re designed to keep you from sending an unfinished or unprofessional product to the customer.
I’ll add the caveat that this only works if the manager has good taste. This is seen as an impossibility, but often project managers I’ve worked for have had better taste than me. They can see a project objectively. Sometimes they don’t care about how much extra work something will take because it’s for the better good of the project. Sometimes they don’t care as much about how the end product will look because the client wants it yesterday. They have to manage that, not you.
That’s why a good manager is a shield. They protect the designer from the client. Not because the client is “dangerous” or the designer “weak”, but so that the designer can focus all their energy on designing.
Agencies do so much that the designer never even has to think about. Prospecting, negotiating price & scope, collecting payment, managing expectations, and a thousand other tiny things that make your life so much better.
A good project manager is kind of like a good executive assistant. They manage the stuff that isn’t directly related to the job but is still vitally important. As a freelancer, I can afford to think about them in those terms since our relationship is not my sole source of income. If I parted ways tomorrow with an agency, I would still have work.
So I’ll say what many designers are too stubborn to say, thank you to the great project managers out there. You do good work that’s often unnoticed or unappreciated. As someone who works with clients directly, I would say client relationship management is about 40% of the job. Depending on your skillset or inclinations it might even be the hardest 40% of the job. Someone willing to take over that role so that I can focus strictly on design is an asset not a liability.