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  • Chapters
    • Introduction
    • The Stages of a Project
    • Chapter 1. Sponsorship and Leadership
    • Chapter 2. Defining the Objectives and Benefits
    • Chapter 3. Planning the Project
    • Chapter 4. Ensuring the Project is a Manageable Size
    • Chapter 5. Defining the Budget
    • Chapter 6. Managing the Risks
    • Chapter 7. Getting the Right Project Manager
    • Chapter 8. Getting Customer Representation
    • Chapter 9. Defining Roles & Responsibilities
    • Chapter 10. Getting the Right Resources
    • Chapter 11. Monitoring and Reporting Progress
    • Chapter 12. Communicating Progress
    • Chapter 13. Consultation and Leadership
    • Chapter 14. Getting Realistic User Requirements
    • Chapter 15. Defining Your Approach
    • Chapter 16. Conducting Structured Testing
    • Chapter 17. Creating an Implementation Plan
    • Chapter 18. Conducting a Post Implementation Review
    • Chapter 19. Realising the Benefits
    • Chapter 20. Learning the Lessons
    • Chapter 21. Celebrating Success
    • Checklist
  • About Us
  • FAQ
  • 21 Ways to Excel at Project Management

Defining Roles & Responsibilities

Question 9: Have you clearly defined the project roles and responsibilities?

Good Practice: The project manager must ensure that the project's roles and responsibilities are clearly defined. You should keep the organisational structure as simple as possible.

The following structure works well on large projects:

Executive Sponsor

  • Highest ranking manager on the project.
  • Vocal champion for the project at an executive level.
  • Secures budget for the project.
  • The final decision-maker for the project.

Business Sponsor

  • Champion of the project, who receives regular updates.
  • Approves the project’s goals and objectives.
  • Attends regular project review meetings.
  • An important decision-maker for the project.
  • Usually chairs the steering committee.

Steering Committee (also known as the Project Board)

  • Composed of senior managers from the business.
  • Responsible for oversight, control and critical project decisions.
  • Meets every 4 to 6 weeks.
  • Helps resolve issues, approve scope changes and offers guidance and direction.

Project Team

  • Responsible for planning and executing the project.
  • Led by the project manager, who reports to the steering committee.
  • Must include a user representative.
  • Must include some vendor representatives.
  • Must include some technical expertise.

User Group

  • Led by the user representative.
  • Must include subject matter experts (SMEs) from the business.
  • Responsible for user acceptance testing of the product or service.

Vendors

  • Contracted to supply products and services to the project.

The roles and responsibilities for managing the project must be fully documented and adapted to suit the project's size and complexity and the organisation's skills.

One of the many roles of the project manager is to actively drive the steering committee, ensuring regular meetings take place, providing clear agendas, and ensuring that crucial decisions get made, and actions get followed up.

Four agency staff working on laptops in a city office

Common Mistakes

  • No clear ownership of the project.
  • Lack of leadership and commitment from the steering committee.
  • Roles and responsibilities are not clearly defined.
  • Disconnection between the project team and steering committee, such as discussions not being open and honest.

Note: This comment is from a project team member. I was never quite sure what I was supposed to be doing.

Warning Sign: The business sponsor fails to attend scheduled project review meetings.

Defining Roles & Responsibilities

Question 9: Have you clearly defined the project roles and responsibilities?

10
Getting the Right Resources

Question 10: Do you have enough experienced resources?

11
Monitoring & Reporting Progress

Question 11: Are you monitoring progress regularly?

12
Communicating Progress

Question 12: Are you distributing regular progress reports?

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