Accountability Vs Responsibility In Project Management

How to make sure you always know when and with whom the buck stops, by Shim Marom

Where the Buck Stops

Within the project management domain one has to have clear appreciation of the distinction

between accountability and responsibility, according to Shim Marom, author of quantmleap.com.

The fundamental point is the question of “when and where does the buck stop?”

Is it the project manager who is by default the one who needs to pay the ultimate price for the failure

or is this issue a bit more complicated than that?

Is there a point at which things might happen under your watch for which you could not and would

not take the responsibility?

The Difference Between Accountability and Responsibility

There don’t seem to be clear and unanimous definitions for each of these terms, for instance…

“Responsibility may be bestowed, but accountability must be taken. In other words, responsibility

can be given or received, even assumed, but that doesn’t automatically guarantee that personal

accountability will be taken. Which means that it’s possible to bear responsibility for something or

someone but still lack accountability."