I am implementing project management at my company. I am attempting to explain to people the definition of a sponsor, project manager, etc. I am having a problem explaining the role of the person who is the resident expert on the system or the process the project revolves around. This person is not the executive sponsor nor are they the project leader/manager. They are typically at a director or manager level within the organization. I use the term Owner. The owner and the project leader partner together to accomplish the project. There are those in the organization that disagree with this approach, that the owner should also be the project leader. They don't seem to understand that most of these managers and directors do not have the skill set to be a project leader (which whole other topic). Bottom line is, I am trying find a definition of a Project Owner, what their responsibilities are, etc. Is there anyone out there with this same sort of structure? Do you call this role something else? Anything that anyone can provide would help. Saving Changes...
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Michael WoodProject Manager / Business Analyst / Business Process Improvement Guru| Independent ContractorGig Harbor, Wa, United States
Actually, I hate the idea of Project Owner. It implies that one person is the only stakeholder in the project which is rarely true. The project manager is accountable for the project's outcome. They may need the guidance and support of many knowledge and political resources to be successful. I will concede that sometimes there is a Primary Project Stakeholder. That would be the person who has the most to gain or lose within the organization from the project's success or failure. Their role will vary but mainly they are the ones the CEO will look to for a thumbs up as to satisfaction levels. Saving Changes...
Alan MelvinHigh Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, United Kingdom
The two distinct roles I believe you are trying to differentiate are in my terminology the project manager and project sponsor.
The Project Manager’s role is to plan, organise, staff, motivate, evaluate, direct, control and lead the project from start to finish against a determined set of requirements given to him by the business. The Project Sponsor is accountable to the business for the investment in the project, and for achieving the project’s benefits. He is not responsible for determining how the benefits will be achieved at the detail level.
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John ZacharProduct Dev Manager| Association for Project Management (APM)Brackley,, Northamptonshire, United Kingdom
Although every project is unique, there are some generalities that can be applied, and I think we are really talking about three different roles. I think that for the most part the discussion above applies; however, here is where I have a slightly different perspective.
Project manager is the one person responsible for the delivery of the products, that will produce the impacts, that will ultimately spawn the benefits - the individual responsible for delivery.
The project sponsor has a different role. Typically the sponsor holds the purse strings, is involved with the initiation / chartering of the project, the one that acts as the interface between the business, and the investment of the project itself. Frequently the sponsor is on the project board, or a member of the steering group.
The third role is one I call senior user. This is the manager of the deparment into which the new products, produced by the project, are inserted, and where they need to be made to work in order to acquire the benefits. If anyone is the project owner, it is the person that has to accept the products and make them work. There is frequently conflicting emotions with this role, for example:
Here is the manager of the department that has to accept the products of the project, endorse the fact that the products have met the acceptance criteria. At the same time, it may be the products delivered by the project that permits the organisation to reduce the department's size by X%, reducing the 'empire' of the manager, therefore his / her importance in the organisation.
Michael Woods' comments about the stakeholders around the project is absolutely spot on, there are a number that have to be managed, and this person is only one.
Finally, there are cases when the senior user and the sponsor are one and the same. This makes life easier for the PM, but it doesn't always happen that way.
I've always had a very simple view of IT project "ownership:" the owner should be someone who is a) a key business stakeholder (i.e., is dependent on the system to deliver bottom-line business results for which he/she has direct responsibility); and b) "owns" the system requirements for the long haul -- that is, is involved in the ongoing decision making about what does and doesn't go into the system, and then is there in the same capacity when the system is modified/upgraded over time. Saving Changes...
