Effective Project Management

Section D The Project Management Role

The project management role is complex and can vary a great deal; however, the role of the project manager has fewer options. Both roles can be defined under the following groupings:

• Strategic and contractual
• Organizational and functions
• Responsibilities and orientation
• Competencies and leadership
• Abilities and skills

1 Strategic and Contractual

An owner has a number of management and contracting options for managing a project. They can use:

1. An owner's team to manage a main contractor, using any one of a number of contract variants
2. An owner's team to manage a number of subcontracts, again using similar or different contract arrangements
3. A consultant or architect (not recommended) to act on their behalf, instead of using their own management team
4. A contract for a project management services organization to supplement their own core management personnel

2 Organizational and Functions

Each of the above contracting arrangements can have different organizational options for the project management role. ¹⁷ Should the organization face the outside world saying, “This is how we manage our business through disciplines and functional groupings”, or should it face its customers saying, “This is how we deliver end products through project management”? These two axes at right angles to each other have different agendas. The axes can then be rotated so that one role is more dominant than the other. Thus a matrix of mixed organizations ...