Feasibility of splitting project management position into client liaison and project management roles
Anonymous
I work for a web development company in China. We mainly work with English speaking clients, but our developers are Chinese with limited English communication skills. We have been looking for a program manager with both good English and Chinese language skills as well as IT project management experience. It has been extremely challenging finding someone suitable. Recently we interviewed a Chinese person with strong IT PM background (including PMP certified). Unfortunately her spoken English skills while good enough to communicate within the office environment is not good enough to communicate effectively with our European based clients.
In a recent company meeting the question was raised about whether it would be possible to split the position. In other words have one person to deal directly with the client side of things (call it a client liaison role for want of a better term) and then the PM managing the internal parts of the project (the parts of the project which doesn't require direct communication with the client).
Upon hearing this I became somewhat concerned about the feasibility of such an proposal. I was curious to know whether others have had any experience with this kind of thing? Would this be doomed to fail or could it work in the right environment? Saving Changes...
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Bernard GorePortfolio, Programme & Project Professional| NZ PoliceWellington, New Zealand
In general it is possible to split this role between the more "technical/process" side and the "stakeholder engagement" side so long as the two people can work together well enough. Often this is done where a "business side" person already has strong stakeholder relations but needs a more experienced PM to cover the formal aspects of the role.
MSP programme management actually applies a similar sort of split - between the programme manager and the benefits/change manager.
However what you are suggesting in detail doesn't sound workable - the project manager may not be the primary stakeholder engagement person but still needs to communicate significantly with them, and how are documents and other artefacts going to be managed where the PM does not have a strong capability in the language of those who will contribute and sign these off and who expect to receive deliverables.
Multi-lingual projects are challenging and the translation and coherence aspects are frustrating and difficult, however isolating the PM from the key stakeholders is not a good idea. Saving Changes...
Anonymous
Thanks for the reply. I see your point. On the documentation side it is not so much of an issue, since the PM's English reading and writing skills are quite good.
This is quite common in China, you have someone with good level of English reading and writing but not so fluent spoken English (due to lack of necessary language environment). Makes finding PMs in this multilingual environment a big challenge here. Saving Changes...
Wayne MackRetired| RetiredSouth Riding, Va, United States
Try looking at the Agile Scrum approach. Scrum defines a "Product Owner" as a role that focusses on the business and customer aspect and defines a "Scrum Master" as a role that focusses on process and process improvement. Saving Changes...
Elizabeth HarrinDirector| RebelsGuideToPM.comLondon, England, United Kingdom
I don't see why it couldn't work if the client-side person and PM work well enough together. It would also help to have clear roles and responsibilities so everyone knows who does what. The PM can always attend meetings or conference calls, even if she doesn't participate fully, so there isn't any need to actively isolate her from the client. In fact, it might give the client confidence to meet her from time to time as your local PM specialist and liaison with the Chinese project team members.
I think you can split the PM role however you want as long as it is practical for the team and works for you and the client. Saving Changes...
