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Project Management and Account Management can mean just about anything in interactive circles and is not necessarily indicative of any particular skill set.
And so, everyone has their own expectation for how a project, campaign and client must be handled. Having worked for so many smaller agencies, my definitions (and my experience) are very broad. In a larger agency, you're able to hone in on specific skills while delegating many of the responsibilities taken on in a smaller shop. This document is a brief overview of some of the basics in managing projects and clients to provide a little insight into a few of the responsibilities I've tried to enhance over the years.
INFORMATION MANAGEMENT
Above and beyond any role I can use to define a great project manager, it is information management. The PM is the collector, organizer, distributer, and overall resource of information for a project. Always searching for ways to communicate to the entire team what they need to know - keeping them in the loop without overload - reorganizing the data in various ways to continue to fuel the work. More importantly, it means making sure the information is understood and that it's acted upon properly. You need to see the big picture and chop it up into little pieces.
Collect Information. Information comes at all angles: at the beginning in the form of research, interviews, data analysis (typically with minimal and even insufficient amounts of data); during the project in the form of requirements, content, and copy; and at the end in the form of more data, post-mortem assessments, and results.
Determine client objectives. Seems simple enough. But that assumes the client knows what they want. In most cases, they have a sense of what they'd like to accomplish, but many objectives are actually carefully disguised strategies. Or worse, they're tasks made to sound like an objective. And certain objectives are gimme's: extremely broad goals that you can pretty much assume for any project (see RSTLN E). Great creative (from every level of a project) comes from constraints that come from carefully determined project and campaign objectives. (See Castaway Creative)
Stakeholder interviews. Stakeholder buy-in is the most important piece of "information" to collect at the beginning of a project. You may have the perfect strategy and you may even execute it beautifully, but if the primary stakeholders don't get their input and ideas to the table, they're not going to appreciate yours.
Content gathering. Content for any project rarely involves a single person. Getting everyone to contribute and keep the flow of content on pace is key.
Requirements gathering. Developing requirements is a fluid skill that evolves as a project matures. While the desire is to supply documentation that captures exactly what needs to happen to fulfill a project, expectations and discoveries change as elements unfold.
Flow of Information. Besides being responsible for acquiring information, project management is about distributing information to the right people at the right time. This flow of information is never a hard constant - it is a fluid skill that comes with the experience.
Defining process flow. Having a baseline process for similar projects is an ideal method for putting some handles on a project early on. In so doing, however, you risk holding the process above the goals of the project itself. Many managers are guilty of letting the process define the campaign instead of the other way around. You want to use your experience from previous projects to your advantage, but also realize that each client, campaign and project bring on a new series of challenges that need to be consistently defined and redefined.
Creating documentation. With each new project you find ways to improve. The best way to make sure those lessons are carried over into future projects is to develop and revise documentation. From requirements, to briefs, to matrices, your documents need to evolve to ensure you're asking the right questions from the start and converting your knowledge of the client through proper channels to your team. You're constantly inventing new ways to communicate information to make sure every team member has the best opportunity to create their best work within the objectives and constraints of each campaign.
Instant information. This is a sign of great organization. Whenever someone has a question, a good manager has the answer. If they don't they'll find it quickly. Generally, most questions that come up have come up before, so making sure you can provide the answer and documentation on a timely basis helps ensure you keep resources engaged. If too much time lapses when someone needs information, their mind isn't always as focused as when they first asked.
ACCOUNT MANAGEMENT
Of course, in most agencies this role is completely separate from project management. In the interactive experience, however, I've realized that these two roles need to either be the same person or the various parties involved need to act as one. I see account management as strategy and vision, while project management falls under implementation and execution. A great strategy moderately executed is the same thing as a poor strategy. (See Strategy vs. Execution). The project manager needs to be involved in the strategy if it is ever going to be fully realized within the various projects that make up a campaign.
Developing Strategy. Strategy is a term that's thrown around so often, that you can't help but squirm when someone starts to talk about it. Agencies always give the line that their services are built around solutions. "We customize solutions to fit your specific needs." However, strategy has become a commodity that just about anyone can offer. A strategy with any meat to it needs to have as much creativity behind it as the tactical implementation. Developing that strategy means letting go of your pet solutions and allowing others around you to help shape that strategy. Some people have a better knack than others at seeing business solutions, but collaboration early on with your team and the client will help ensure that the strategy does not become a commodity. A great strategy starts with strong objectives, effective ideation, and then filtering ideas after they've had time to be fully considered.
Communicating Strategy. Many great strategies are never fully realized because the communication of that strategy fell apart. You have to gear your message for your audience, whether that's the client or the team building the project. They have to buy-in to your vision and see how the various elements of your strategy fit in. Hopefully they were a part of developing that strategy, so buy-in will be a little simpler. However, making sure that what you have written is truly understood is a little more challenging.
 Maintaining Strategy. Another reason great strategies fail is because they get lost as the project unfolds. Strategy is either just a task on the process of getting something done (something we just to do it); or it gets tacked on at the end (we have a great tactic that we want to use, so we find a way to say that it was a part of a strategy). But the strategy needs to be held up high so everyone can see it when they get into the fog of the work. You need something to measure the work against all the way through the project. Holding on to that strategy and returning to it at the appropriate time to help question your implementation is always powerful. (See Seinfeld and Strategy)
Managing Expectation. Things change. Everyone knows it, but for some reason, we don't like to talk about it all the time because it might make us look like poor planners. Expectation maintenance is huge to the success of any relationship. Clients cry out for it. As long as both parties know from the beginning that everyone's interests are being carefully monitored and considered, you can eliminate a lot of hassles and headaches.
Communicating Status. This goes hand in hand with managing expectation. Schedules and deadlines and milestones all have room to breathe whenever status is communicated. It puts everyone at ease to at least understand that you're honestly looking after their business.
TIMELINE MANAGEMENT
On time and on budget. This is the cry of the project manager. But managing a timeline has little to do with developing a schedule. It has to do with adjusting it when new discoveries are made, providing detail when it's helpful and eliminating it when it detracts. To best express effective management of team expectations and the overall timeline, I'll offer two examples of what NOT to do.
CYA Management - Documentation and schedules are intended to communicate the project and help the project manager do his job. It is not a bible for everyone else to follow so you can protect your own self-interst. If something is documented but is ignored by someone on the team, you can't go back and say "it was documented." You have to make sure they get it. It is your job to make sure the team not only has the information they need and the schedule of when tasks are expected, it's your job to make sure the project is moving and that the documentation you've worked so hard to create is understood.
Telegraph Management - This is when you get some piece of information and you pass it off directly to your team. The best example is getting an email from a client with a request and then forwarding the email on. Then the next email. Then the next. You are the filter for everyone else in the team to make sure they're not distracted by every piece of crap that comes through your inbox. It's the manager's job to assess that information and then repurpose it for each team member so that it applies to them and is organized in a way that flows with the rest of the work they were given.
RESOURCE MANAGEMENT
To understand what resources you'll need for a project, you'll need to understand your team: their abilities, their weaknesses, their passions, and their personality. You'll need to know who works well together and be aware of personell issues before the project even starts. And to fully understand the skill sets of those resources, you have to have a strong understanding of the technology and skills they employ.
Assigning Roles. This comes from truly knowing your colleagues and the people your going to work with. In larger companies the director of each division is usually responsible for what resources you get assigned. But don't be shy of asking for someone that you think will fit the tasks and be sure to have a good explanation as to why (not just because you prefer it).
Staying Ahead. Invent and reinvent ways of communicating and staying steps ahead of everyone else. You have the benefit of seeing the full scope of the project and the campaign it fits into. Take advantage of that.
Resource Allocation. Staying ahead also means that you understand the priorities of other projects team members may be working on. Many factors go in to determining those priorities but communication with other managers using your resources is the only real way to make sure you're getting the best use of everyone's time.
Motivation. Part of developing the right priorities is also a question of motivation. Are the team members as engaged and involved as they need to be or want to be? Do they have enough work that inspires them in addition to the tedium that they most likely have to endure at times? Are there other ways to get them motivated on projects that are less sexy? There are many ways to do this, but just knowing this is a responsibility is the first step. "Your colleagues are professionals and they should be able to motivate themselves." If this is your attitude then you've significantly underestimated your own role in the project and you're on your way to eventual failure.
IDEA MANAGEMENT 
You can read a lot more about Idea Management throughout this site. But in this segment, I want to highlight two important areas that every project and account manager should at least attempt to practice. After this, I encourage you to look around the rest of this site for ideas about idea management and how to make it work for you.
Collaboration. Cooperation across multiple disciplines is the key to an effective integrated strategy and work. Collaboration is not easy. It requires getting people to let go of ego, see value in contribution, feel comfortable with sharing (and not getting burned for it), and find value in the process.
Consideration. Do not let ideas escape because you were too quick to dismiss them. There are a million reasons why they get dismissed, and so they never get to fully mature. Instead relish in the beauty of an idea. Soak it in. If it's truly great, there is an answer to the naysayers. You just can't let them bury it before it has a chance to find life. Putting holes in an idea is reserved implementation of strategy, not at the initial stages of 'ideation'. The other component of consideration is not setting hard-and-fast rules too quickly. Offer consideration in your creative brief to get designers and developers and copywriters to see something from a different perspective. Don't offer up too many specification and requirements when they haven't had a chance to put their two-cents in yet.
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