In this chapter, the book discusses a lot of concepts and issues that are associated with both the functional manager and the project manager. I wanted to go over and compare the two roles in terms of availability, responsibility and power. This will mostly be taken from section 5.12 but it will also cover some topics from other sections as well as some personal experience/knowledge.
Authority and Responsibility:
The start of section 5.12 tells us that the main problems within a project environment is who has the authority and who is responsible for what. At my current job, this is pretty well defined via rules and procedures that are established for each project. Does this mean that every rule is followed and there’s no dilemmas? Definitely not. This does mean, though, that we are able to facilitate the delegation of responsibility and authority on a project-by-project basis.
With that being said, I do see the following relationships as being the main differences between functional and project managers:
I believe that these main differences contribute to the authority and responsibility dilemma. When talking about responsibility/authority we can also think at an employee level; who will get assigned what, when, for how long and what authority does a person have over resources/the project. So, this isn’t just manager vs manager.
Taking a look at the differences we can see that the project manager is more concerned with the what, when and why of the project and this is on a high level compared to the functional manager. It isn’t the case that the questions in the functional manager’s interface/paradigm isn’t a concern for the project manager, but this is something that the project manager will most likely ask the functional manager to do and to take care of. Looking at the functional manager’s concerns, we see that they are worried about the who, where and how the task or series of tasks will be done. These seem to be questions that require more knowledge of the people, tools and processes available within the organization/team. A big issue that pops out right away is “interpersonal disconnect”. A project manager is almost like the player that’s on the outside looking in.. Obviously, it all depends on the geographic location of the team and now with technology it’s easy to instantly connect and chat. But, for the most part, functional managers will have the advantage of having closer interpersonal relationships with the employees and this will not only give them more authority but also “formal power”.
Power
Project managers will have more delegated authority and a different access to power. This is where the personal qualities and characteristics of the project manager will have to come in to play. Project managers will need to have the ability to gain support and with support will come the power or at least- perceived power.
From this diagram we can see the factors that are most significant in gaining support for a project/project manager:
I do believe that this diagram is accurate, again, just from a subjective point of view. At my current work, I work with our project manager/former developer- his expertise is definitely a huge factor when it comes to gaining support in a project. He knows the steps that are necessary to take and he knows almost exactly how it should be done at a development level. This will vary depending on what type of project it is but the factors do seem to be in order of importance to the level of power and support gained.
I think I can wrap up this post here or else I could end up getting into more convoluted issues and topics covered in this chapter. To summarize: The balance between authority/power, and responsibility for managers is a hard one – it varies from project to project. A lot of this has to be sorted out before the start of projects- but it will be an ever-changing delegation of responsibilities and power. We mentioned how functional managers have a certain advantage when it comes to obtaining power and how project manager may have to put in work just to gain that power. We also went over some of the factors that can lead the project manager to gain support and with that support will come the power to get project done correctly, on time, within budget and according to spec.
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