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“The roles of the Project Manager and the Systems Engineer are often combined and imposed on the already overloaded Project Manager. This is encouraged by contracts that do not understand the criticality of systems engineering and do not recognize the need for both a Project Manager and a Systems Engineer” – Tim Kasse – 2004

After years of being involved in systems and software engineering and conducting hundreds of assessments, I am astonished at what project managers tell me they are responsible for. I am more astonished that organization’s think that if they just announce that a project manager can be a multi-faceted person, he or she will magically be able to do all that is asked of them in an unquestionable manner. One assessment revealed that a Project Manager was responsible for (No Joke):

• Planning and Control (Management part) of project including the soft side or people side
• The technical management of the project – This means they were supposed to be able to completely fulfill the Systems Engineering role
• Quality Assurance – Conduct the quality assurance functions on their own project
• Configuration Management – Perform the configuration management functions required for Developmental control of configuration items and ensure a smooth hand-off to the Organizational control part of configuration management
• Systems Test – As they normally did not actually do any coding or build any other engineering components, it was thought that the Project Manager should be able to conduct the Systems Testing as well

There may have been even more responsibilities but those mentioned above should be sufficient for this blog. My response to the report given by those project managers: Can any of you really perform all of those tasks with efficiency and effectiveness? Because if any one of you can, I will hire you immediately and pay you the highest salary of your imagination. Why, because we are going to make millions off of you!!

If you are a Project Manager please let me know what Project Management responsibilities you have been given responsibility for. How does your list match up to the one given above?

Project Manager

The project manager is the head of the project and has the ultimate responsibility for the planning and control of everything related to the project. The Project Manager must provide direction to the project team and be able to answer questions including:

• For whom do I work?
• What is expected of me?
• Why is it expected of me?
• What tools and facilities are available to me?
• How do I do what is expected?
• What training is available to me?
• What must I produce?
• When must it be produced?
• Who do I give it to?
• How will my product be evaluated?

The Project Manager is the DRIVER and as such takes on the responsibility for many diverse tasks including:

• Lead the project team through the process of creating and executing the project plan
• Mold the project members into a project team
• Obtain approvals for the project plan
• Issue status reports on the progress of the project compared to the plan
• Respond to requests for changes to the plan
• Facilitate the team process, using trained and experience in interpersonal skills
• Remove obstacles for the team so they can do the job they are asked to do
• Act as the key interface with the project sponsor
• Act as the key interface with the project customer
• Ensure that the relevant stakeholders are involved throughout the project lifecycle as required
• Call and run regular project meetings
• Issue the final project report
• Capture lessons learned and update the process database

Systems Engineering combines basic engineering principles and a method of thinking together with a roadmap that guides a project toward a functional development of complex systems. It requires the interaction of technology, the organization, and the environment.

Hence one can look at Systems Engineering as the management technology that controls a total system life-cycle process, which evolves and which results in the definition, design, development, and deployment of a system that is of high quality, and is cost-effective in meeting the user’s needs.

Systems Engineers

The Systems Engineer is typically responsible for:

• Identifying the need and the system opportunity by matching need and technical feasibility
• Being the link between customer needs and system idea and design during the entire process of system creation
• Developing a set of system and functional requirements based on customer needs, wants, constraints and interface requirements
• Dividing and allocating the functional requirements into different subfunctions and modes of operation
• Serving as the lead in envisioning the system’s operational concept and create the link between the system’s requirements and the system’s configuration
• Designing the system architecture based on the operational concept and operational scenarios
• Collecting data from various sources, perform modeling and simulation and analyze them as a basis for decision making
• Determining if the system is designed to its requirements
• Testing and verifying that the system, as built, will meet those requirements as designed
• Conducting technical and tradeoff analysis leading to the resolution of technical problems at different interface points
• Conducting risk assessment on the various system elements
• Seeing the entire picture and how each part is contributing to the performance and feasibility of the system as a whole
• Coordinating the work of the various disciplines involved and manage the interfaces among them so that the result is an overall optimum system
• Evaluating or supporting the performance and qualifications system integration and of the final system through testing and simulation

If you are a Systems Engineer please let me know what responsibilities you have and the relationship you have with the Project Manager. How does your list match up to the one given above?

System evolution has and will require the technical guidance of the Systems Engineer from cradle to grave and the management guidance of the Project Manager to ensure the customer requirements are evolved into a deliverable product.

Share your Systems Engineer vs. Project Manager experience.

NOTE: Tim Kasse’s B.S. degree was in Systems Engineering. He has been involved with various software, systems, and hardware projects throughout his career.