A Role Belongs to a Project
Who is the Project Manager? The question itself is not accurate enough. A person may be an Operator in the company, the Project Manager on Project A, the purchaser on Project B, and should see nothing of Project C. So we separated two things: identity belongs to the company; role belongs to the project. And a role's real meaning is not its name — it's what that person can do.
When designing permissions for Snappy PM, we ran into a question that looks very simple:
Who is the Project Manager?
Thinking further, I realized the question itself is not accurate enough.
A person may be an Operator in the company, but the Project Manager on Project A, only responsible for purchasing on Project B, and on Project C should perhaps not see the project at all.
So in the end we separated two things:
Identity belongs to the company.
Role belongs to the project.
Owner and Operator describe a person's relationship with the business.
Project Manager, Designer, Site Engineer, QS describe what this person is responsible for on a specific project.
These two concepts should not be mixed together.
More importantly, we did not design a fixed job-title table for Snappy PM.
A furniture company may need:
Project Manager / Designer / Purchaser / Installer
A consulting firm may need:
Project Lead / Consultant / Accountant
These should use the business's own language.
And what really matters about a Role is not what it is called, but:
What can this person do?
Can they confirm the customer's quotation?
Can they Change Scope?
Can they add an Expense?
Can they process a Delivery?
Can they see Financial documents?
So in Snappy PM, a Role ultimately corresponds to a very concrete set of action permissions and file permissions.
This reminds me of how many small businesses are actually managed.
The owner often does not want to build a complex Organization Chart.
He just wants to say:
"George takes this project, he runs the execution; Ahmed handles purchasing; don't let site staff see the financial documents."
Software should be able to express such a simple sentence directly.
And when the project ends, the next project can be arranged completely anew.
Because a company's organization structure may be long-term, but:
Projects are temporary organizations.
Every project reassembles a group of people to get one thing done.
So we want Snappy PM's permission system to start from the Project as well.
Not by first asking:
What is your title?
But:
What are you responsible for on this project?
This is probably closer to how small businesses actually work.
SnapLedger, your life easier.
Identity belongs to the company; role belongs to the project. Owner and Operator describe a person's relationship with the business; Project Manager, Designer, Site Engineer describe what that person is responsible for on a specific project. A role ultimately maps to a concrete set of action permissions and file permissions — expressed in the business's own words.
In your company, when a new project starts, can you express permissions as simply as the owner says them — 'George runs this one, Ahmed handles purchasing, field staff shouldn't see the financial files'?
An organization's structure may be long-term, but projects are temporary organizations — each one reassembles a group of people to get one thing done.
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