Our businesses have interactive relationships where team members rely on each other for information flow back and forth. Responsibility is direct obligation to watch and monitor the number or output. Owning a number or output is about accurately gathering and reporting information. So responsibility for and owning of information is different but equally important in our companies.
Project Managers are different then field workers in that their job requires a gathering and managing of numbers created by the field. They are directly “responsible” for overseeing the project and keeping the project on time and on budget. For a PM to do a great job he has to “own” many numbers that other people in his company are creating and providing to him. A foreman is “responsible” for his crew’s field performance. He then “owns” the numbers he reports to his super or PM. His workers have responsibility for performing the work and meeting budgets.
The Accounting people have responsibility for inputting information into the system and they own the output of the transactions which are reports about the financial transactions of the project. They own the numbers they provide the PM and then the PM uses these numbers to be responsible for the project. Accuracy in both owning the number and being responsible for the number are critical components of accountability. Neither can be taken lightly or casually by all parties in an environment of accountability.
By: Bennie Franklin