The unsung heroes?

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If you ask 50 people in a room what a project manager does, you will get 50 different answers," says Phillip Edmondson, general manager, Edara Project Management.

This misunderstanding of the role is perhaps to blame for why many developers still feel their projects can do without employing a specialist project manager.

In general terms, the project manager's role is to liaise between all the various elements on a construction site to get them working towards one common goal.

"There is a major problem over here of clients understanding the role of a project manager," says Edmondson. "The role and responsibility is that we have total responsibility for a project.

"The engineer is responsible under the contract to make sure that it fits in with the construction standards and the local authority standards.

"But we have to make sure that the engineer is making sure that they are doing that.

"If the project goes wrong, we are the ones who get in trouble and get fired. So there's a lot of pressure on us.

Edmondson believes that many projects were suffering because clients often took jobs upon themselves which should be left to the project managers.

"As a lot of clients come from financial backgrounds, they don't understand what we do," he says.

"They should come to the project management team from day one and let us recommend the right architects, engineers and cost consultants; but often they do this themselves.

"With a smaller project, most of these have in-house project managers who can handle it.

"But when you are coming up to US $81 million projects you need to have someone who can oversee the project; allowing the architect, engineers and cost consultants to concentrate on their jobs.

"This means the client will not have to worry about individual contracts, difficulties and costs of how to get from one price to a better one.

Yet the rapid pace of development in the region is creating unique problems of its own.

"The sheer volume of work in the UAE makes things difficult for everyone," adds Edmondson.

"Project management is a lot different from what we know back in Europe. Over here, project managers need to have some kind of technical background, but back in the UK they are often only qualified in project management.

"They aren't qualified in civil engineering or architecture; they just take a course in the one subject.

"Over here, project managers start as project managers, but they have to work as consultant engineers because of the sheer volume of work.

"There is a difference between Europe and Australia, where you are purely trained as project managers, and over here where you need other skills as well.

But Bassam Samman, CEO, Collaboration, Management and Control Solutions (CMCS), said it was not just the workload which was creating difficulties in the industry.

"The problem we are having is that there are not enough project managers in the region," he says.

"There are not enough qualified people to manage those projects.

"Projects are getting delayed and clients are not getting what they planned for.

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