Project management: The role paradigm shift

The role paradigm within which the Project Manager (PM) controls and co-ordinates any project centres around the basic time-cost-quality considerations. Additionally, the people orientated aspects of project teams generates a drive for the Project Manager to display a range of interpersonal attributes and skills (competencies) that will ensure their effectiveness and ultimately, project success. This paper examines the roles/function paradigm demanded of Project Managers within a range of advertised vacant PM positions and relates these to actual performance. The adverts were subjected to Content Analysis and the findings used to drive a Time-Role Analysis Model (TRAM). Practising Project Managers were selected from a wide geographical, project and organisational base, to participate in construct development and real-time analysis of their roles undertaken and those not executed. The findings show that of the 33 roles offered as possibles, there are clear roles that the Project Manager undertakes and a set which lie outwith the normal working domain. Yet these outlying roles are still being called for in advertised vacancies. There is an anomaly is the paradigm set and this requires further research with both those advertising for, and those practising, Project Management.