Project Management Roles and Responsibilities Matrix

Authority & delegation

A fundamental requirement of good project management, is clear delegation of tasks and the appropriate authority to empower and motivate the delegatees in their achievement.

Authority

The sum of the rights and powers assigned to a position.

Accountability

The work assigned to a position.

In all but the simplest of projects there will be considerable technical and business complexities. These will, of necessity, require contributions of expertise from a wide range of disciplines representing Project Asset Holder and other interests. There will therefore be a number of different roles with regard to an activity.

Irrespective of which type of organisation is chosen, it is important to ensure single point responsibility is maintained for the execution of the activities.
Before developing other roles and responsibilities the departmental roles and responsibilities (i.e. the departmental head responsibilities) need to be determined. It is useful to map these at a high level and document them in the Project Execution Plan and in the Project Management System along the lines of the example below.

Individual tasks, responsibilities and authorities should be set down in a job description and it is suggested that the TECOP headings be used to define the responsibilities. Some examples of the areas of responsibility that may apply to individuals is shown below against those TECOP headings.

The individual’s role is set out in the figure below and the job description can be developed in the format show in the accompanying figure. Each task of responsibility in the job description should begin with a verb or action word.