Project Parties and Roles

CNM Cyber suites

Project Parties and Roles (hereinafter, the Lectio) is the lesson part of Project Work Essentials lesson that introduces its participants to project management concepts. This lesson belongs to the CNMCT Entrance section of the CNM Cyber Placement.

Content

The predecessor lectio is What Project Work Is.

Script

No doubts. An adult doesn't have to hire anyone to buy a bicycle. Work on bigger and costlier projects commonly involves two parties. Development administration is one party; it orders and finances work products. Project management is another party; it delivers the ordered products.

Both parties may belong to one or two organizations. The organization that orders the project is called a project customer. The organization that delivers project results is called is a project owner.

The project owner is responsible for project management. Often, it sets up a special project management office (PMO) that directs, monitors, and/or supports project personnel.

A project manager is the key role in management of Waterfall projects. These people concentrate on development of approved products at approved budgets and on approved schedules.

A project manager leads project planning until the project baselines are approved, project executing until the deliverables are validated, and project closing. For the planning stage, a manager may hire business analysts to collect requirements and systems engineers to design a system as a solution. Those developers that directly create deliverables are hired only for the executing stage.

If project personnel is fewer than 5-9 people and the schedule is not compressed, the manager may be not a dedicated role. One of developers or another member of the team may act as the project manager in addition to other responsibilities.

In Agile, project management functions are distributed between several roles. For instance, developers define work based on solution requirements such as user stories

In the planning stage, some coordinator, for instance, an account manager working for PMO, hires members of the planning team in addition to the product owner. This team conducts Sprint Zero or a similar activity undertaken to create a product backlog.

The development team is hired for the executing stage. Besides the product owner, that team consists of developers, and, possibly, a ceremonial role such as a Scrum Master. Scrum Masters don't deal with work products and deliveries; instead, Scrum Masters make sure that the development goes according to the agreed rules.

Unlike project management, development administration is often distributed between two organizations if two organizations are involved in one project.

The project customer identifies a business need, which is a problem to be solved, initiates a project to create a solution, and provides the budget for the project.

The project owner, consequently, hires someone who acts on behalf of the customer while approving solution requirements, project baselines, and/or assessing whether the work product meets acceptance criteria.

In Waterfall projects, this development administrator role is called project sponsor. Baselines is not a feature of Agile projects, so the administration concentrates on product requirements only.

A product owner is the key role in Agile projects. This person concentrates on envisioning of the right product, describing that product usually using user stories, and prioritizing the product backlog. Product owners do not deal with budgets, schedules, as well as other management functions such as hiring and procurement. The area of responsibility of product owner is making sure that the customer's money are spent on the product that the customer looks for.

Key terms

Enterprise administration, project management, project sponsor, product owner, project manager

Closing

The successor lectio is Tips for Project Coordinators.