Key Roles
The Project Manager is accountable for ensuring the project meets its’ objectives.
Using proven best practices and frameworks the PM will manage the performance of all stakeholders and resources required to ensure the project deliverable is achieved and the project is closed successfully.
The Project Manager:
- Oversees the definition of project scope and the project plan
- Ensures project sponsorship is secured
- Manages and communicates the project plan encompassing stakeholders, resources, and timelines
- Facilitates team collaboration
- Manages and escalates issues as needed
- Communicates testing and release plans as defined in the project scope
- Provides visibility of project status to all stakeholders on a regular basis
A Program Manager is accountable for directing a collection of related projects through to successful product delivery and value realization.
Whilst managing an individual project the Program Manager undertakes the role of Project Manager for that project.
Responsible for the success of the project, the project sponsor advocates for the project deliverable and provides resources for the project.
A project sponsor:
- Defines the success criteria of the project ensuring they are aligned with the strategic goals of UMass
- Promotes the value of the project; act as the project champion
- Ensures the project has sufficient funding
- Participates in the development of the project charter and scope
- Ensures the project progresses to meet the needs of UMass
- Facilitates project communication and marketing
- Reviews and agrees changes to project scope
A Project Administrator works closely with the Project Managers to facilitate the mechanics of the project lifecycle.
The Project Administrator is responsible for ensuring project documentation is current and up-to-date.
Key responsibilities are:
- Scheduling routine meetings and recording action items
- Ensuring project communication happens according to project requirements
- Ensuring all project documentation exists and it current for each project
- Reporting on project performance
- Distribution of documentation and resources to the project team
- Identifying opportunities for improvement of the project
A project customer is the person (or team) that benefits from the product or service delivered by the project.
The customer influences the allocation of project resources.
A project customer:
- Defines “value”; the Definition of Done
- Agrees on the timeline of the project
- Participates in the development of the project charter and scope
- Requests changes to project scope
- Signs off on testing of the product or service
- Accepts and signs off when the product or service is delivered
Depending on project scale, the project sponsor and the project customer may be the same person.
A Business Analyst works closely with the customer to manage the needs of UMass throughout the project lifecycle. The Business Analyst works with customer team to overcome obstacles and ensure that the project adds value to UMass.
A business analyst:
- Assists the project sponsor in defining the project scope
- Gathers requirements from business units and users
- Documents technical and non-technical requirements
- Tests solutions
- Identifies errors and bugs and reports back to the project team
The Project Review Board is an advisory group of PMO stakeholders that ensure projects proposals will meet UMass objectives and value delivery prior to approval as a project.
The Project Review Board:
- Meets monthly to review project proposals
- Reviews the scope of individual projects and seeks clarification
- Decides on level of PMO involvement
- Assigns a Project Manager to a project
- Reviews changes of scope for existing projects