Recently few titles have been changed in our Org and titles of few Project Managers have changed to Project Management Specialist while the others remain as Project Manager. I'm trying to find what a "Project Management Specialist" means, is it the same as a Project manager or is there a difference between these titles ?
Does the PM needs to be a specialist on the project topic? I think a PM has to manage the processes of project management, supported by the industry-related specialist. But, I know, in some case, a background experience on the specific project topic can help the PM to do a better job. Saving Changes...
Anonymous
Sometimes PM Specialist is a person who have a deeper knowledge on tools and processes, and more experience on Project Management. They are advisory group to bigger Project Manager's group. Project Managers role is to manage the project, and some organization (or projects) don't need very well educated project managers (PM role may be temporary for that group, and then they move back to operations, as Subject Matters Expert).
Nevertheless it's best to talk to both group representative to learn from the first hand what's the job description. Saving Changes...
Bob PatrinoConsultant/Project Leader| TamazariNewport, KY, United States
My experience has been that a PM Specialist is a less senior position than a Project Manager. Sometimes its similar to Project Coordinator or Project Administrator. Saving Changes...
Titles as in the name of the position don't necessarily reflect the actual dimensions/authorities/responsibilities/etc of a given post. In addition, they differ largely between organisations. For an example, in business, the title "coordinator" is most likely associated with an entry level position, while the same title in some NGO's refers to the highest level in the mission as in "Country Coordinator".
For this reason, we conduct a process that is called "Job Matching" when comparing jobs that have the same title in different organization in order to clarify the dimensions of each and then to be able to compare the job size of both, especially when we go into the long process of "job Evaluation" or "Job Weighting".
You will need to go through the responsibilities/authorities details of each of the titles that you mentioned in your question in order to see which one is higher or larger as a job and to spot the actual differences between the two. Saving Changes...
Anonymous
I am not sure what you are asking about.
Titles and positions could mean different things in different organizations and we could give you 20 different answers that might not be relevant.
As a general rule, the word specialist is used to mean someone specialized into a specific function or role whereas, by definition, a project manager should be a generalist.
The best thing to do here - if this is not a hypothetical question - is to ask in your organization what the role description for each position is and why was the change made? Saving Changes...
I agree with Mounir, definition of role can change from one organization to other, most of opinions are just assumptions, you need to ask in your org what the meaning of each role there Saving Changes...
Julia CunninghamManager Project Management| BattelleRichland, Wa, United States
As others have stated, titles need to be investigated relative to the particular company using them. They could be steps in the same job family, or different job families, from the outside, I can only guess. Saving Changes...
