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. Project administration is one party; it orders and finances project works. Project management is another party; it delivers the work product.

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.

In Waterfall projects, a project manager is a key role. This person concentrates on development of the right product at the right budget and on the right schedule.

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.

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.

In Agile, project management functions are distributed between several roles. 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.

but project administration is often distributed between two organizations if two organizations are involved in one project.

Enterprise administration is what project administrators do. They identify a business need or problem, initiate a project to create a solution, and provide the budget for the project work. The administrator can be the customer, customer's employee, representative,

The paying customer is the mandatory role on that side. The customer may hire a product owner, project sponsor, or other people whose area of responsibility is making sure that the customer's money are spent on the product that the customer looks for and that is delivered on time.

If the project work cannot be predicted, manager's opportunities to plan are limited. Agile methodologies address that issue. Developers usually work in iterations and, as soon as new increments are developed and new data is discovered, discuss the future product and its delivery with the customer's representative. Scrum Masters or similar ceremonial roles control the development process.

In CNM Agile, a project manager is rarely a dedicated role; project management is distributed and projects are managed at a micro-level.

Key terms

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

Closing

The successor lectio is Tips for Project Coordinators.