Who Else Owns Your Project?

Andrea Brockmeier is the Director of Project Management at Watermark Learning. She has 20+ years of experience in project management practice and training.

  Communications Management   Leadership   ProjectsAtWork  

Yes, project success or failure is ultimately the responsibility of you, the project manager. You’re in charge of everything, from planning and reporting to monitoring risk, budget and schedule. But there are other people who must take ownership of their parts of the project. And it’s also your job to make that clear.

Recently, a project management colleague was expressing frustration with her inability to get a project moving in a constructive direction. She knew the success of the project was her responsibility, but she felt hamstrung in her ability to get what she needed from people. Even simple requests for information from external stakeholders went unanswered and resulted in project inertia.

I hear this from project managers on a regular basis and it always brings me back to one of the truisms in project management: The project manager is responsible for project success. In fact, this is concisely articulated in A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK Guide): “As the person responsible for the success of the project, a project manager is in charge of all aspects of the project including, but not limited to:

• Developing the project management plan and related documents
• Keeping the project on track in terms of budget and schedule
• Identifying, monitoring and responding to risk, and
• Providing accurate and …

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