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Project Champion is an informal role whose main goal is to make the project succeed by addressing different obstacles while making sure that the stakeholders are always satisfied with the project.
A project manager is the person responsible for leading a project from its inception to execution. This includes planning, execution and managing the people, resources and scope of the project.
A project manager is a formal and designated position of a single individual who through the Project Charter has been formally assigned the project with authority & resources from the Sponsor.
A project champion on the contrary is an informal and temporary position being offered to the person who is an expert on the subject to assist and guide the project manager and the team on challenges or obstacles faced during the project life cycle.
To quote Wikipedia and have to agree with many gentleman's answers above.
Project Champion – “The role of Executive sponsor is a role in project management, usually the senior member of the project board and often the chair. The project sponsor will be a senior executive in a corporation who is responsible to the business for the success of the project. ...
The Project Champion (also known as the Project Advocate) is not the Project Sponsor, not an exceptional Project Manager who is physically strong, and not the smartest and fastest resource in the project team whose work will guarantee the success of the project as some may intuitively think.
Project Manager
A project manager is the bridging gap between the production team and client. So he/she must have a fair knowledge of the industry they are in so that they are capable of understanding and discussing the problems with either party; he/she is a professional in the field of project management.
Project managers can have the responsibility of the planning, execution and closing of any project, typically relating to construction, industry, architecture, aerospace and defense, computer networking, telecommunications or software.”
Project managers = For Specific Projects Only.
Project champions= Who accomplish Projects Successfully.
Project Manager
The project manager's role in a nutshell, is the overall responsibility for the successful planning, execution, monitoring, control and closure of a project.
According to PMI,
Project Managers are organized, passionate and goal-oriented who understand what projects have in common, and their strategic role in how organizations succeed, learn and change.
Project managers are change agents: they make project goals their own and use their skills and expertise to inspire a sense of shared purpose within the project team. They enjoy the organized adrenaline of new challenges and the responsibility of driving business results.
They work well under pressure and are comfortable with change and complexity in dynamic environments. They can shift readily between the "big picture" and the small-but-crucial details, knowing when to concentrate on each.
Project managers cultivate the people skills needed to develop trust and communication among all of a project's stakeholders: its sponsors, those who will make use of the project's results, those who command the resources needed, and the project team members.
They have a broad and flexible toolkit of techniques, resolving complex, interdependent activities into tasks and sub-tasks that are documented, monitored and controlled. They adapt their approach to the context and constraints of each project, knowing that no "one size" can fit all the variety of projects. And they are always improving their own and their teams' skills through lessons-learned reviews at project completion.
Project Champion
According to experts, the Project Champion is someone who:
advocates for the project by constantly praising its benefits (strategic advantage, ROI, etc…) to the stakeholders,is a fierce supporter of the project,and provides (often moral) support for both the Project Manager and the Project Team by liaising with upper management to address their worries and/or obstacles in the project.
Specifically, the Project Champion has a primary objective to make the project successful by addressal of different hurdles concurrently ensuring that the stakeholders have a continued satisfaction with the project.
Who Should be the Project Champion?
Anyone from middle or upper management is eligible to become the Project Champion, provided he has the following traits:
Strong communication skills: Since the role of the Project Champion is communicating with the Project Manager and the stakeholders, he must be an excellent communicator.
Admiration of the organization: The Project Champion should be someone admired and respected by the organization, someone with charisma, someone that others blindly trust, and someone whose suggestions are always taken into consideration.
Expertise in company politics: It is a fact that most stakeholders don’t want to come up themselves with solutions to the project’s problems (they simply don’t have the time), instead, they want others to suggest solutions to choose from. Stakeholders usually select the solution that is in harmony (does not conflict) with their own agenda. The Project Champion’s role is to propose solutions taking into consideration every stakeholder’s individual agenda, e.g. the company’s overall politics.
Perhaps the perfect Project Champion is someone from upper management, with the above traits and some solid Project Management experience. It is important that in this case, the Project Champion should be careful not to get tempted and assume some of the responsibilities of the Project Manager (such as stakeholder management).
project manager - his take care for all related in his project><another one for development and management
project manager is an executive position.
A project champion, also known as a project advocate, is a person who supports a team through the completion of a project. He provides moral, psychological and physical support to the team, provides them with needed resources and advocates the project's benefits and advantages to its stakeholders. However, a project champion is not a project manager or team leader.
A project manager is a person who making decisions or planning the steps that will make the project move forward.
According to PRINCE2 Project Management methodology,
Project Champion - a senior manager or executive who gains support and resources for the project. This person is usually higher in an organization hierarchy than the project manager.
Project Manager – the person responsible and ultimately accountable for a project's performance.
Notes:-
§ PMBOK (PMI) methodology is using a Project Sponsor terms instead of Project Champion.
§ Six Sigma and Lean BPM Methodology are using the Project Champion terms.
Mr. Divyesh is spot on as always!
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