Project Roles and Responsibilities

One of the factors that contributes to the success of any project is to have well defined roles of each member or group of the project team, in order to clearly set expectations and understand responsibilities. These roles may vary by project, but in general the roles will be very similar to those outlined below. Note that not all roles are used in all projects, and on some projects roles may be combined.

Customer

Who the customer is:

The customer is the individual, group or entity who is the beneficiary of the project's final product, service or result. A large customer group is usually represented to the project by one person or a smaller representative group.

What the customer does:

• Provides input into the original project outline
• Reviews and helps decide on proposed project changes
• May participate in user acceptance testing of the output delivered by the project

Project Sponsor

Who the Project Sponsor is:

Usually a senior member from the business area in which the project is requested, with a deep understanding of that area's operations and strategic aims. The Project Sponsor has the authority to approve budgets and resource requests within their business area.

What the Project Sponsor does:

• Has a vested interest in the successful outcome of the project
• Secures funding and overall approval on project
• Vocal and visible champion for the project
• Confirms that the project's goals and objectives are met to ensure that the project obtains the intended business objectives
• Keep abreast of major project activities
• Ultimate decision maker for issues that impact the business
• Provides final approval for all major scope changes
• Provides project direction and setting priorities when competing objectives exist overall in project
• Provides regular feedback to the project team on performance versus expectations

Project Stakeholders

Who the project stakeholder is:

Any individual whose interests may be affected as a result of project execution or project completion. Normally, stakeholder groups have a representative to champion their needs on a project team.

What the project stakeholder does:

• Has vested interest in the completion of the project and how the project will impact their specific area
• Provides information, as needed, to insure that the project stays on track and meets the intended goals and deliverables

Project Executive

Who the project executive is:

Provides project leadership, confirms the need within their area of responsibility, validates goals, objectives, and resources and is accountable for the overall delivery of the project.

What the project executive does:

• Vocal and visible champion for the project along with Project Sponsor
• Keeps abreast of major project activities and provides additional information requested by the Project Sponsor
• Identifies needed resources and addresses resource constraints
• Provides support for the Project Manager; assists with major issues, problems, and policy conflicts; removes obstacles; is active in planning the scope; approves scope changes; signs off on major deliverables; and signs off on approvals to proceed to each succeeding project phase
• Provides oversight to ensure architectural, infrastructure and security standards are adhered to

Project Manager

Who the project manager is:

Person responsible for planning, organizing, managing, controlling and communicating on all phases of a project.

What the project manager does:

• Along with the Sponsor,Stakeholders and Business Analyst, helps create the Project Charter during the Identification phase of the project
• Develops the Project Plan with the team and manages the team's performance of project tasks
• Secures acceptance and approval of deliverables from the Project Sponsor and Stakeholders
• Responsible for communication, including status reporting, risk management, escalation of issues that cannot be resolved in the team
• Responsible for ongoing status reporting, including project health and tracking the financials of the project
• Responsible for overall management of the vendor relationships
• Responsible for closing the project in a controlled manner, and obtaining customer sign-off for the project closure document to formally close the project

Business Analyst

Who the business analyst is:

The Business Analyst is responsible for investigating business systems, identifying options for improving business systems and bridging the needs of the business with the use of IT.

What the business analyst does:

• Reviews and analyzes the information provided by the customer in the ITS Project Request Form (PRF)
• Assists in the creation of the project charter with assistance from the ITS representative, the project manager, and the information provided by the customer
• Analyzes and develops an understanding of the current state processes to ensure that the context and implications of change are understood by the department and the project team
• Identifies and documents all business, technical, product and process requirements and works with the department to prioritize the requirements
• Helps to define acceptance criteria for completion of the solution

Project Team

Who the project team is:

A project team includes a diverse combination of people and skills who have the responsibility of performing the project tasks assigned to them, in order to meet the project goals.

What the project team does:

• Assist the project manager in planning work packages, creating schedules and cost estimates
• Responsible for completing assigned work on the project during the execute phase. This may include design, build, testing against requirements, operational assessment and implementation activities
• Identify risks and opportunities throughout the project, and may help in formulating the appropriate responses to these
• Actively participate in project team meetings and promptly communicate issues to the project manager