Studying for the PMP has been a real eye opener. Not only does it equip you with excellent project management skills but it also gives you great insight into the project management profession. Understanding the differences between a project manager and a project expeditor is really important.
A real project manager is responsible for the delivery of a project and how it is run. This includes resourcing, budget control, delivery strategy etc. This is not to be confused with a project expeditor who is responsible for carrying out mundane project admin tasks such as getting status updates from team members e.g. development is 25% complete, design 10% complete etc.
As a former BA, I often ran projects for my manager. I did the BA part but also played the role of a project expeditor while my manager made the key decisions about the project. My experience of this is that you get a lot ‘BA/Project Management’ roles that are like this. These should really be called ‘BA/Project Admin’ roles.
Next time you are in an interview for one of these roles really try and tease out what your responsibility, as project manager, will really be.
