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Tuesday, January 02, 2007

Project Roles and Responsibilities


Happy New Year!

Hopefully, you can use this list to educate your team members about the various roles on a project team.

Executive Steering Committee
Sets the strategic vision and objectives for a given program or project. The team leads efforts to build consensus through the organization to support the project or program’s objectives.

Governance Board
Formal team of executives from across the organization that ensure projects will meet/are meeting enterprise goals.

Project Sponsor
Provides clarity of the project vision, and directs the activities of the project team. Allocates funding and resources to the project. Provides executive authority necessary to overcome organizational obstacles and barriers. The guardian of the business case, and ultimately responsible for project success.

Performing Organization
The organization whose personnel are most directly involved in doing the work of the project. This organization usually provides sponsorship for the project.

Project Management Office
An organizational body or entity assigned various responsibilities related to the centralized and coordinated management of those programs/projects under its domain.

Project Stakeholders
Persons or organizations (customers, sponsors, performers, public) that are actively involved in the project or whose interests may be positively or negatively impacted by executing or implementation of the project.

Program Manager
Person responsible for the centralized, coordinated management of a program (group of related projects) to achieve the program’s strategic objectives and benefits.

Project Manager
The person assigned by the performing organization to achieve the project objectives. The project manager is responsible for coordinating and integrating activities across multiple functional lines, and managing stakeholder communications. The project manager accomplishes the above by managing project scope, time, cost, and quality. Finally, the project manager applies project management, general management and technical skills, as well as team management, negotiation, financial and business acumen, combined with an understanding of organizational politics to meet project objectives and to meet or exceed stakeholder expectations.

Project Team
All the project team members, including the project management team, the project manager, and for some projects, the project sponsor.

Functional Manager
On projects, the person responsible for ensuring agreed-upon project tasks are completed using pre-defined resources under the manager’s control within scope, time, budget and quality constraints.

Project Team Leader
Responsible for ensuring that agreed-upon project tasks and assignments are completed on time, on budget, and within quality standards for personnel under their realm of control or influence. The team leader should be knowledgeable of the principles and practices of project management and understand the business unit’s strategic and operational issues.

Technical Manager/Liaison
Responsible for the technical implementation of the project as measured against the project requirements, quality targets, and budgetary constraints, and timelines. Ensures technical deliverables are consistent with the overall technical strategy of the enterprise.

Business Analyst
Primary interface between projects and business partners. Responsible for understanding current and future processes, including processes for the entire enterprise. Documents business requirements, generate business cases, assists in defining project benefits/ costs, and participates in project reviews

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Excellent List..very succinct and informative.

Anonymous said...

The next step is to construct a Responsibiliyt Assignment Matrix (RAM) which shows who is Accountable, Responsible, Consulted, and Informed.
Having the roles defined is a start, but what deliverables each role is "accountable" for is critical to delivering project value.
This step is oftem missed, when a list is made of the participants. Holding the participants accountable lays the groundwork for on-time, on-budget, on-spec delivery

Anonymous said...

An excellent summary. However one role is missing - the Project Portfolio Manager.

Project Portfolio Manager is responsible for spearheading PPM within the business and has one of the most important roles within the Project Portfolio Management Team (PPMT) alongside the executive sponsor. This person is focused on leading the management team behind PPM and has overall responsibility for managing delivery of the portfolio process and communicating its performance to both business strategic and operational functions. The PPMT leader is responsible for providing and updating (for example, in response to changing strategy) the value judgments and policy decisions needed to guide the team. The PPMT leader should have the ability to influence decisions to suspend, at any time, further commitment of investment monies due to failure to make anticipated progress, changing economic climates, or shifts in business objectives.

Anonymous said...

Dear Stephen Seay,

My name is Philip McGuin and I'm the author of the http://www.project-portfolio-management-blog.com/

I found your blog site very interesting and I was wondering whether you would like to exchange blog roll links.

I have already included a link to your site from our home page. Let me know if this is smonthing you would like to do.

Best Regards
Philip McGuin
E-Marketing Manager
Atlantic Global
philip.mcguin@atlantic-global.com

Unknown said...

Hi

Really very beautiful steps provided here. I liked it. Designation and duties both mentioned here. I will go for business analyst. It's my dream. But currently i am studying in a project management institute.