Is Project Management an Art?

The more project managers I meet, the more I find out that project management has a huge artistic side to it.

Despite having common body of knowledge such as PMBOK, are 2 project managers alike? Or the way in which they execute projects alike? Certainly not!

Like an artist leaves his distinct style on his work, I believe every project manager like an artist also has a distinct style in managing a project.

The human side is definitely very important, but is it just art? or let me reword it, is art just enough?

From my meagre experience, I have seen that there are two approaches to project management:

The Art of project management relies on human intuition, communication and capabilities to negotiate between conflicting objectives and priorities. These are critical skills for any project manager.

However, the artistic skills can be greatly enhanced by using science. The science of project management deeply complements the art side.

By science of project management, I mean usage of exisiting scientific, cognitive and mathematical techniques in an innovative fashion to improve decision making process, balancing priorities process, measurement and reporting process, conflict management process and so on for a project manager.

This is what the book I am writing is about. In any situation, how can a project manager leverage the science and combine it with his artistic style to excel as a project manager. This level of understanding helps a project manager to go beyond his typical role and add strategic value and advantage to the organization.