When searching the organization of a company to find a project manager, the first results may be unsuccessful because no one can be found with that position. The identity of the project manager is often hidden behind some other organizational function. This is particularly true for specialized internal projects where, for example, a person with the title of “facilities manager” could act as a project manager during a major accommodation reorganization. Another example is when a ‘senior engineer’ with personal style is responsible for managing an expensive new product design and development project.
Even when project management is credited with the importance of a full-time appointment, the situation may be less clear from the variety of titles used to describe the job. Contract Manager, Scheduling and Estimating Manager, Project Coordinator, Project Coordination Engineer, Program Engineer, Project Leader, and Project Manager are just a few of the titles that have been used. The trend in recent years has been encouraging, and project management is now widely recognized as a profession that deserves reasonable status and rewards with its own professional associations (The Association for Project Management in the UK) and with much less confusion. about the job title.
The levels of responsibility and authority given to project managers vary considerably from one organization to another. In some cases they simply act as planners and coordinators. In other companies, the project manager will have complete authority over all those responsible for achieving the project objectives.
A project manager’s career may have started as an information technologist, as a specialist in one of the disciplines of operations research, as a contract manager, or as a qualified engineer. One of the most common routes for project management goes through the engineering design department. Often times, the engineer in charge of designing a particular project has some degree of overall responsibility for seeing the entire project through to completion. When this happens, the engineer has a dual organizational position, exercising direct line authority and oversight over engineering design personnel, acting only in a functional role when attempting to influence all other departments involved in the project.
The project management function in a small business may be performed entirely part-time by one of the existing department heads or by someone else, as in the case of the engineer just described. Other companies might be forced to recognize the need for a full-time project manager, being the owner responsible for an individual project or for several projects that are managed simultaneously.
The question of “How old is a project manager?” and “Who should the project manager report to?” now get up. Much of the project manager’s time will be spent coordinating, directing and integrating the activities of some departments and relying on others for information or support services. Therefore, the desirable organizational status for the project manager seems to be indicated at a level at least equivalent to that of the departmental managers of the company.