Why Equal Power Creates Better Project Decisions

My argument for separating project leadership from supervisory authority

A Counterintuitive Approach to Better Project Outcomes

In my last article, I made a provocative claim.

Project team members shouldn’t report directly to the project manager. Instead, they should have a different supervisor.

I know this goes against common practice. That’s exactly why I want to explain my reasoning today.

The Core Problem: Power Imbalance in Conflict of Interest Situations

Let me get straight to the point:

Projects have multidimensional goals. Trade-offs are inevitable. The problem arises when a single person must negotiate these trade-offs alone with themselves.

The result? Stress for that person and suboptimal compromises for the project.

A truly optimal, sustainable compromise requires three elements:

1. Clear advocates: Each goal dimension needs someone who openly champions that position

2. Equal footing: All parties must negotiate as equals

3. Neutral facilitator: A Project Management Master who moderates without their own agenda, working toward consensus

This is precisely why I’ve defined project management roles along these goal dimensions:

• Project Manager: Responsible for project objectives.

• Project Architect: Responsible for the product.

• Functional Representatives/Project Team: Responsible for technical execution and content realization.

The Power Imbalance Problem

When the project manager is also the supervisor of other project management team members, the power dynamic becomes distorted.

The project manager possesses additional leverage through their ability to conduct performance reviews and impose disciplinary measures.

The consequence is predictable: Team members will carefully consider how hard they push their interests against those of their boss.

It’s not easy to contradict your supervisor and consistently advocate for your position against theirs—even when that’s exactly what the project requires.

Three Common Objections (and My Responses)

“But good managers can make good decisions on their own!”

Of course competent leaders can develop compromises independently.

The real question is: Are these the optimal compromises?

That depends heavily on chance—the manager’s character, their mood that day, the team’s courage to speak up. Why leave project success to chance when we can build it into the structure?

“Isn’t this just about performance management?”

No. Naturally, managers must monitor performance and address issues. That’s not in dispute.

The core of my argument is different: It’s about conflicting interests, not performance deficits.

The danger lies precisely in the dual role of project manager + supervisor, where these two issues become too easily entangled. These dimensions must be clearly separated.

“In line management, the boss is responsible for everything too!”

Ideally, a line manager has a single, clear interest: the functionality of their department.

In the dual role, however, multiple contradictory interests systematically overlap.

Similar situations exist outside of projects, and they cause significant problems in practice. Often, they’re branded as “micromanagement.”

A Concrete Example

Here’s a classic conflict scenario that illustrates the issue.

The Situation

Project Goals:

• Reduce energy consumption by 5%

• Keep product costs constant (versus predecessor)

• Be customer ready in 3 years

The Reality:

The project team developed optimization measures. Combined, they would just barely achieve the 5% target.

But there’s a catch:

• Implementing all measures increases product costs

• Some measures violate platform guidelines, others conflict with brand standards

Responsibilities in a Project Organization

To better understand the positions of the individual project team members, here is a brief overview of the responsibilities.

Project Manager

The project manager is responsible for ensuring that the project goals are achieved.

Typical project goals for which the project manager is responsible include:

• Delivery deadline

• Project and product costs

• Performance indicators defined in the project charter (quality, performance characteristics, functionalities, etc.)

They owe the project team balanced, realistic goals that they must align and agree upon with the stakeholders.

Project Architect

The project architect is responsible for a customer-appropriate, platform-compliant product that aligns with brand characteristics.

They represent the interests of the platform architecture within the project and ensure compliance with cross-project product properties and characteristics.

At the same time, they owe the project manager technical architectures and concepts with which the project goals can be achieved.

Department Representatives / Project Team Members

The project team members are responsible for efficient and competent delivery of project work.

The project team members decide on the working approach and the technical execution.

In doing so, they must consider both the project manager’s specifications regarding project goals and the project architect’s specifications regarding product architecture and properties.

At the same time, they owe the project manager efficient, goal-oriented procedures that minimize resource and time consumption, along with balanced risk awareness.

The Three Competing Interests

Those different responsibilities lead to the following perspectives.

Project Manager’s Perspective:

• Implement all measures

• Avoid cost increases through more efficient design

• Negotiate remaining cost gap with suppliers

• Complete everything on schedule

Project Architect’s Perspective:

• Implement platform- and brand-compliant measures (even if costs increase)

• Drop non-compliant measures (even if the energy goal is missed)

Project Team/Functional Representative’s Perspective:

• Get more time to search for better solutions

• Adjust goals with stakeholders

Finding the Compromise

In practice, there’s rarely a perfect solution. Not all predetermined goals can be achieved simultaneously.

A compromise must be found across all goal deviations:

1. Time compromise: How much additional time is acceptable? Can other activities be shortened to compensate, or is there flexibility in the delivery date?

2. Content compromise: Which measures get implemented, which don’t? This determines the gap in energy consumption, costs, and platform compliance.

3. Process compromise: When are project goals adjusted—immediately or after validation? This addresses how stable or volatile the compromise is.

I don’t want to specify a particular compromise here; in each specific situation, a different solution will be the best one. Nevertheless, I think the example illustrates the problem.

Deciding or Negotiating Compromise

Compromises can be reached in two fundamentally different ways:

Negotiating or deciding.

In both cases, arguments need to be brought to the table, but not necessarily all of them.

Finding Compromise Through Decision

Every deviation from a well-considered guideline can have consequences. If there are no consequences, then it’s easy to accept the deviation.

However, the consequences are usually neither recognizable at first glance nor assessable in their impact.

For this reason, each stakeholder must examine the effects on their area of interest and explain them to the team.

In the case of a decision by the project manager, the project managers don’t have to explain their arguments. They make the decision themselves anyway.

Of course, it’s a great advantage for the acceptance of the decision if they communicate their arguments in the justification.

However, I have very often had to experience that in the hectic rush of daily business, this is exactly what doesn’t happen.

The consequence is then a poor collaborative climate and an “I don’t care anymore” attitude.

Deciding on a compromise is undoubtedly the fastest solution strategy. However, it’s also the solution strategy with the greatest volatility.

The probability of finding the best compromise through decision-making borders on the probability of winning the lottery.

As long as it’s a reasonable compromise, it’s not a disaster not to decide on the very best solution. Things move forward in any case, and that’s important.

However, possible misjudgments in the decision-making process and a lack of commitment to the compromise within the project team regularly lead to this compromise being frequently questioned afterward.

Finding Compromise Through Negotiation

In negotiation, all arguments come to the table.

Each advocate explains what consequences arise for their area from each potential goal deviation. Here the project manager is part of the team.

Then consensus is sought.

Consensus means finding a solution everyone can live with, even if not everyone is happy. But there’s both understanding and acceptance.

Prerequisites for stable consensus:

1. All participants are equal

2. A facilitator without their own agenda guides the discussion

This is exactly where traditional hierarchy fails:

• If the project manager is the team’s supervisor, they’re no longer equal—they have power.

• If they also supervise the Project Management Master, the facilitator is no longer neutral—they’re suspected of representing the boss’s interests.

When the project manager is on equal footing, the resulting consensus has significant advantages: It’s based on the entire team’s competence and a shared risk assessment, giving it high quality and acceptance.

The Bottom Line

I’m not claiming projects can’t function without separating disciplinary and professional authority. Many projects run reasonably well in traditional structures.

But I do claim this:

The separation offers substantial advantages that significantly improve both project outcomes and project climate.

Good compromises aren’t found by luck or because someone decides to be nice.

Good compromises emerge through structures that enable genuine representation of interests, equal footing, and neutral facilitation.

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Now’s the right time to jump into the comments – I’d love to hear about similar experiences, parallels you’ve seen, or your take on this.

We can also chat on this topic.

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