The role of the project controller

Syed Ali Dilawer.

Syed Ali Dilawer highlights the growing importance of project controllers within the construction industry.

Most professionals agree that project management skills can be divided into two basic components, commonly referred
to as the skill and the knowledge of project management.

A major segment of the project manager’s work deals with the skill, or leadership side of project management. It demands vision, communication, negotiation, motivation, and interpersonal skills. In this case, business acumen and knowledge of the industry are critical.

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On the other hand, knowledge of project management methodology and tools, plus strong analytical and problem-solving skills are required.

Here, the ability to quickly gather data and communicate it under pressure is critical. Because these two distinct skill sets are best provided by two very different types of people, some organisations have begun to divide these two sets of responsibilities.

The development of the project controller’s position has been an evolutionary process. Initially, many organisations created a position called “coordinator.”

The coordinator was responsible for handling administrative tasks, entering data into a timekeeping and scheduling system, gathering status information, and helping to produce status charts.

Over time, additional requirements — such as development of the initial schedule and estimates — forced many organisations to develop the role of “planner”.

Some organisations required this role to perform on-going schedule tracking and analysis, often using the term “scheduler.”

Responsibilities of tracking issue and risk logs, analysing schedules, and facilitating all planning and status sessions were usually assigned to this role.

More recently, responsibilities increased to include handling resource allocations and constraints, schedule and critical-path analysis, financial reporting of earned value and providing other documentation sufficient to comply with authorities’ requirements.