Project Organisation and Responsibilities
This should cover the following:
- Those actively involved in carrying-out
the project
The key players in the project organisation are depicted below. It should include Project Sponsor, Project Manager, the project team - and the key responsibilities and delegations. It should also include any other key contributions needed - specialist support, contractors, etc. Reproduce the map below showing the key roles and individuals or groups who carry them out.
- Project Control
Planned review meetings (sponsor/manager), team meetings, and end-of-phase reports.
Key Points
- Of these roles, the key roles are clearly those of Sponsor and Project Manager.
- Each project should have a named Project Manager who is the focal point of the project, and a named Project Sponsor who "sponsors" the project on behalf of the organisation. The sponsor may be an individual or a group – perhaps a steering group or a project board.
Functions of the Project Sponsor include:
- Support the Project Manager when needed - resources, blockages
- Protect the project from undue extraneous influences
- Forewarn the Project Manager on relevant changes elsewhere in the organisation or other projects
- Sell the project into the strategic arena and the rest of the organisation
- Take key information about the project into the rest of the organisation as required.
- For the purpose of the project, the Project Manager reports to the Project Sponsor but the latter’s role extends far beyond that. In practice the best situation is where the sponsor and manager act as a team, each doing what they can to make the project a success.