Your Account Manager vs. Your Project Manager: Who Does What?
Clients sometimes have a single point of contact, but on larger engagements you will work with both an Account Manager and a Project Manager. Understanding the difference helps you direct questions to the right person.
Your Account Manager
Your Account Manager (AM) is your long-term strategic relationship owner. They are responsible for:
- Understanding your overall business goals and how technology can support them
- Managing the commercial relationship — contracts, renewals, pricing, and commercial disputes
- Oversight of your satisfaction across all active projects
- Introducing new services, capabilities, or team members relevant to your needs
- Escalation point for any issue that cannot be resolved at project level
- Your technology roadmap and future planning conversations
Contact your AM for: commercial questions, contract matters, strategic direction, senior escalations, and relationship-level feedback.
Your Project Manager
Your Project Manager (PM) is focused on the day-to-day delivery of your active project. They are responsible for:
- Planning and tracking the project timeline, milestones, and deliverables
- Running sprint planning, demos, and retrospectives
- Managing the engineering team's day-to-day work
- Raising and managing risks, issues, and change requests at project level
- Your primary contact for project status updates and task prioritisation
- Co-ordinating UAT and sign-off processes
Contact your PM for: project progress, deliverable questions, bug reports during active development, sprint planning, and day-to-day task questions.
When They Overlap
On small projects, one person may perform both roles. On larger accounts, your AM and PM co-ordinate closely to ensure you receive consistent information. If you are unsure who to contact for a specific question, default to your PM for day-to-day matters and your AM for anything strategic or commercial.