What are the similarities and differences between the Project coordinator and Project manager ?

Project Coordination can cover a lot of roles and responsibilities depending upon the organisation and how they have allocated them throughout the business. Coordination can range from adminsinstration duties (maintenance of project documentation, plans and reports), through engineering duties (maintenance of headcount databases, materials, configuration management) right up to junior project management duties (updating risk/opportunity registers, schedule updates, financial updates). The main difference is that although the project coordinator may do some of the project management work, the project manager is ultimately responsible and accountable for the successful delivery of the project outputs. The project manager can delegate work, but still retains the responsibility and accountability. Most projects have a project manager on a project but let us see how the role a project manager and a project coordinator play in a project and the advantages of having a project coordinator on a project. The roles of a project manager and a project coordinator are closely related. Take for example, an information systems project with all of its complexities of design, quality management and training. A project manager is responsible for the overall project. A project coordinator implements the system by building networks of cooperation for each segment. The project coordinator works with the project manager as his ally. The project manager provides leadership while the coordinator puts the team and process together for project implementation. Project Manager By definition, project managers must efficiently and effectively execute projects. Firstly, they must balance both internal and external stakeholder interests and keep both sides in sync over time. Second, they must understand customers’ requirements, address their changing needs and manage the dynamics of those changes. However, they must also manage those changes throughout the enterprise, vendors, suppliers and partners. Let’s take an example wherein a project manager has to manage a customer, project sponsor and five representative users, in all7 stakeholders. The formula for calculating number of communication channels isN (N-1)/2. So our project manager is having7(7-1)/2 =21 communication channels without the development team. Say that the project is outsourced offshore to a team of9 developers. Now the communication channels he has to handle are16(16-1)/2 =120. Usually80% of the Project Manager’s time is spent in communication. Do you not think this will be overwhelming for a Project Manager when he has to manage120 communication channels that too most of them being offshore with time zone and cultural differences. This is where the Project Coordinator comes in: with a Project Coordinator in the team let us look at how the scenario changes. Project Manager now has to manage8(8-1)/2 =28 communication channels instead of the whooping120 and the Project Coordinator takes care of10(10-1)/2 =45. Now let’s take a look at the definition of a Project Coordinator. Project Coordinator The role and responsibilities of aProject Coordinatorare usually asubset of that of a Project Manager. The primary responsibility of a project coordinator is to keep the project and all related processes running smoothly. Project teams often require coordination of activities, resources, equipment, and information. To satisfy this need the project coordinator functions in their primary role. Any coordination issues which cannot be resolved are elevated to the project manager (escalation). Research indicates that there is a strong correlation between components oftrustandproductivity. Trust is based on communication effectiveness, conflict management and rapport. Cultural differences play a key role in building trust and the person managing the multicultural teams needs to understand this. For instance, in the west usually punctuality is taken for granted…. whereas in places in the east where the infrastructure issues could exist say power failures, water logging, transport strikes even though a person might want to be on time but for reasons beyond his control is delayed. Failing to understand this, the first may conclude that the second is lazy, obstructionist, or dishonest. The second person will expect respect for the natural order of things. Cultural differences in multicultural teams can create misunderstandings between team members before they have had a chance to establish any credibility with each other. Hence a Project Coordinator should be preferably be a person who understands both the offshore and onsite cultures and helps in building trust which is a critical step in creation and development of multicultural teams in addition to that he / she will bring following advantages to the project One point of contactand thusreducing the number of communication channelsfor the Project Manager. Time Zone Management Cross Cultural Management including HR issues. Creating Teams based on competencies and skills. For example in Agile development process you might want to have team members working as “Pairs” where in a more experienced developer is paired with a relatively less experience person or a new team member to bring the person up to a particular level. The project coordinator can decide which team members will be paired. Task Assignment based on the competencies of the team members as he/she knows the team closely. It is important to note the distinction between a role and individually identified people and one person can perform many roles. For example, an organization may have10 people who can perform the role of project manager , although traditionally each project only has one project manager at any one time; and a person who is able to perform the role of project manager may also be able to perform the role of business analyst and tester . Depending on the skill and experience of the Project Coordinator, he/she can also be involved in the Quality and Requirements Management Areas as well. You can make use of theRACI(Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, and Informed) model to define the roles and responsibilities of the Project Manager and a Project Coordinator. The success of your offshore effort will largely depend of how it is managed. It is advisable to have at least a Project Coordinator on the project and preferably offshore.

The similarities between the project manager and coordinator are both of them should fully aware of the project (contract, specs., and stakeholders ... etc,), changes control and risk control.\\The differences between the project manager and coordinator are the coordinator scope concentrate on the engineering issues and the relationship between all design trades and the project manager is the ruler of the project and controls the communications between the project team and stakeholders and has the final decision in the project

Project coordinator is a support to project manager.

Both are good observers and followers for the project steps, but the project coordinator supports and helps in decision-making while the manager is the decision-maker

 

Project Coordinator poses possible solutions and processes that lead to reach the target and project manger evaluates those processes, solutions and approves the right ones for implementation - the project manger is responsible for the results in front of the CEO But the Coordinator is responsible only in front of the project manager.

In brief, Project Coordinator is commonly used in (Functional / Weak Matrix) organizations, he is weaker than Project Manager, has some authorities to assign resources but no authorities to make funds or any overall project decisions.

Both must have all soft and tacticle skills to communicate between stakeholders and resolve issues, a coordinator though has responsibilities on implementation steps and communicate issues to project manager who has the overall responsibility of improving the priject's performance and customer satsfaction.

The Project Manager and the Project Co-ordinator both are similar in nature for all the process groups of Project Management. The only difference is in the authority where project manager enjoys full authority and the project co-ordinator has to look back to the board of functional managers.

Project Coordinator is one of the Project Team member having responsibility to coordinate with project team on behalf of specific area of expertise like marketing, finance or user.  

ALSO / AND

Project Coordinator is one of the Project Team member having responsibility to coordinate with any stakeholder on behalf of Project Team.

 

Project Manager is just like an Umbrella to the Project.

 

P.M. IS THE LEADER

P.COORDINATOR IS AN ASSISTANT TECH.

project manager is the controller of the entire project have all authorities to execute the requested goals on other hand coordinator is just an assistance have wide range of experience more focused on technical issues rather than business cycles.

Addition to the previous opinions, the difference does not resemblance but is Integration

The project manager is the executive director in charge of the development and implementation of the Action Plan

And coordinator of the project is part of the administration, which helps to ensure the project is completed and the main objective for all