Project Management

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Project Manager - by Title or by Role

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George Freeman Thought Leader | Author | Architect| Florida, United States
So, what is a project manager, the title, or the role? In my experience, chartered project managers who perform as the “project executive” and who report into a steering committee are rarely HR titled as a “project manager,” although they may have been at some point in their career. These PM’s are normally seasoned individuals who have cross-domain knowledge, and who have proven experience as a project professional; hence, they are trusted with the reigns of the project.

On the other hand, those with a project manager title are often relegated to performing technical project management activities and have limited or no functional control over the project, and perform more in line with the role of a project administrator.

Obviously, this is not true across the board and depends heavily on the organization's structure, industry, maturity level and the like. What is your experience, your concerns, and what is the trend from your perspective?
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Adrian Carlogea Australia
Nov 14, 2019 4:45 AM
Replying to Pradeep Verma
...
It is mostly a role. Title can be anything, but the responsibilities bear by the person and the duties performed by him defined his actual position.
In Scrum, there is no role as project manager but in those organizations the Scrum Master have to perfom similar duties as of PM.
Scrum is a framework, usually used in software development, that is not specific to projects.

Some years ago I worked as a software developer on a software product development department that was using Scrum. However the department was not using projects and as such there were no project managers there. The department did not have a fixed budget to deliver something but instead it was continuously resourced to maintain and enhance a software product for which software licenses were sold.

The company also had a software delivery department that was deploying and customizing software. This department was also using Scrum but also had project managers as the projects were delivered for a fixed price and as such they had a fixed budget.

In conclusion the Scrum Master has not taken the role of the PM. If you are using Scrum in a project you need both roles although they can be held by the same person. If you are using Scrum in product development or maintenance and don't have a fixed budget to deliver something then you need the role of the Scrum Master but not that of the PM.
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Lukasz Pawelec IT Project Management| GATX Poland
I will agree with those who say it is a role.

I have seen a few project managers who had a title as their finished dedicated study diplomas or certificates but they did not succeed very well in leading a project.

I see that you need a bunch of natural predispositions to fulfill a role of PM. And then you should receive a title as a natural consequence.
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Stéphane Parent Self Employed / Semi-retired| Leader Maker Prince Edward Island, Canada
Like Luis, I think of project management as a set of responsibilities, more so than a role or title. That's because, as Kiron pointed out, the responsibilities are often spread across multiple project roles.
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Sergio Luis Conte Helping to create solutions for everyone| Worldwide based Organizations Buenos Aires, Argentina
Like it or not, is a role. With that said, the role definition organizations can take will depend on the way the decided to follow (PMI, IPMA, GPM, etc). And here comes the other side of the problematic because in addition to those organizations you can find the role definition inside some methodologies (DSDM for example) or other organizations specific a a domain like CMU SEI.
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