Whose Job is it Anyway?

But often, both account and project management seem to be roles that are born out of necessity (and hair-pulling panic!) once an agency hits a certain size.

In my experience, these are the issues that lead agency owners to realize they need a project manager or account manager:

• No one has any idea when a project will be finished, and deadlines feel like hopeful wishes whispered into the wind
• Clients are angry because no one is communicating with them or addressing their feedback
• Directors are spending more time dealing with clients than guiding their teams
• There are no systems in place to keep the team on the same page, leading to disagreements, rushed work, and a whole lot of frustration
• Few of your clients want to keep working with you or refer others your way
• You aren’t sure if your projects are making any money

If you’re dealing with any of the above, you may need an account manager or a project manager—or both.

What is the difference between account management and project management?

Account management (AM) involves looking for opportunities to work with a client and being the champion for that client’s needs and goals internally. Project management (PM) involves championing the project and keeping things moving forward on budget and on time.

Account management and project management are roles made up of skills and tasks, but they aren’t necessarily different positions held by different people. They can be, but it’s not a requirement.

A project manager might do account management, or a business development manager might. An account manager might dip into project management. Or a designer or developer might be a lead on a project and do both PM and AM. They don’t always need to be distinct positions within your organization.

I started my career as the first account manager at a digital agency that was growing quickly and rapidly expanding their offerings. They hit a point where their team lead system wasn’t working as well as it once had. Senior designers and developers didn’t have the time—or understandably, the interest—in managing client communication, budgets, and timelines.

Fresh out of a completely unrelated Bachelor of Arts degree, and with very little office experience, I jumped in head first. One of my key responsibilities was handling client communication, which often meant getting a question from a client, sending an IM to a strategist/designer/developer, scratching my head in confusion, asking what “CTR”, “CSS”, and “CMS” were, googling frantically, writing a response to the client in a way that I felt they’d understand, running that response past my teammate to ensure I had it right, making edits, and then finally sending the email to the client.

In those early days as I was learning about the world of web development and digital marketing, my value was in asking the right questions to the right people. I was a conduit between the client and our team. I went to bat for their needs and wishes. And because I also needed the veil of secrecy around the technology and marketing jargon to be lifted, I could act as a translator.

My role was new at this organization, so while I had great support and guidance, I had no real blueprint for what it meant to be an account manager. I just started trying to fill the gaps I saw. And as I saw the gaps, I began a journey into project management territory. And when I did, I found out just how blurry the line can be between these two roles. It’s still one that I think most people don’t fully understand.

I asked some friends from Louder than Ten about the distinction between AM and PM and here’s some of what we heard:

“The client tells the AM what they want, the AM tells the PM what the client wants, the PM tells the AM to tell the client they can’t have that but they can have this instead and then gives people tasks and deadlines”.

“My role as a PM definitely includes AM if you define AM as the relationship and future-looking role”.

“I consider the following account management: pitching new projects/engagements; negotiating contracts; handling money (invoices, reminders).”

“The AM owns the relationship. PM supports the AM and client in getting solutions implemented.”

“I am [the] AM and PM. I think an advantage is that the communication never gets lost between what the client wants and what needs to be done.”

Account management versus project management

Here are some examples of the tasks associated with AM versus PM in digital work (this is not an exhaustive list):

Should you have both an account manager and a project manager?

Maybe! But maybe not. It depends on the size of your team, the complexity of your projects, and the type of work you’re doing. Running an SEO project will likely need less project management, but may need a great deal of account management if your client is hands-on. Product development, on the other hand, could crash and burn pretty fast without a dedicated, experienced project manager.

One thing is certain, though—you definitely need both roles (and their associated tasks) to be covered, no matter what type of work you do. Otherwise, the hair-pulling will commence.

As I grew into my account management role, I started noticing issues that I had no idea how to fix. I was good at keeping clients informed about their project, but often that meant telling them bad news about timelines extending or budgets increasing. This was my least favourite part of the job, and it’s still something I find challenging. Who wants to be the bearer of bad news? When you’re the main point of contact, the tough conversations end up in your court. But one thing kept coming into my mind, “Tough conversations are inevitable, but did there need to be so many?!”

In my account management role, I didn’t have the tools to prevent the issues that were understandably frustrating to clients. I might’ve put together a rough timeline for a project, but then it felt out of my hands. I might’ve been told the budget for a project, but felt that I had no way of helping to keep my teammates within those boundaries.

In short, I was missing the project management counterpoint that makes for a great project.

Account management is key for nurturing relationships with your clients. Someone who is adept at account management is going to make your clients feel heard, appreciated, and excited to do more work with your agency. And to tell their friends about it! They will also have a good handle on managing scope because they know how to keep people accountable to timeline and budget constraints.

Project management is key for running successful projects, because great PMs have the ability to adapt and renegotiate. Have a fixed budget? Your PM will know how to reduce the scope. A strict deadline? They’ll work to increase the budget and cut down on the complexity. It’s this ability to flex and bend as the project changes that makes an experienced PM invaluable. They will also help their teammates meet their deadlines, will create and maintain effective systems, and will be able to tell whether a project is successful or not (and why).

In order for account management to be done well, the person responsible needs to keep the client’s needs and goals top of mind. They need to be able to advocate for them to the rest of the team, who will often be motivated to protect their own time over the whims of the client.

In order for project management to be done well, the client’s wishes can’t supersede the boundaries of the project scope. That automatically creates a tension between the AM and PM roles. If you have someone on your team who can comfortably balance those competing interests, you can likely rely on them to handle both account and project management.

If not, you might need to consider supporting your project manager by having another team member help with managing the client relationship, or by assisting your account manager with scope creep conversations.

If you’re an account manager without project management support, you’ll probably feel like I did in those early days:

• You’ll be the face of every piece of bad news but will have no way to prevent it from happening again
• Your updates to clients will be based on guesses and you’ll never feel fully confident that you’re giving them the true story
• You won’t be able to encourage further work, because the client doesn’t trust your ability to deliver

And here’s why it’s challenging to balance account management tasks if you are primarily a project manager:

• You’re always the bad guy to someone unless you’re amazing at finding compromises (either the client isn’t getting 100% of what they want, or your team isn’t)
• If you are amazing at crafting compromises, you’re probably exhausted by it since that’s emotionally draining work
• Communicating with clients about payments leads to unnecessary tension when you’re already needing to navigate difficult budget conversations
• It’s difficult to look ahead for future opportunities when you’re heads-down on a project, trying to get it to the finish line, and clients are less likely to discuss next steps when they’re expecting an update on their current project from you

What about digital “producers”?

To throw another term into the mix, you get a creative-PM hybrid that is sometimes called a producer.

A digital producer is both a project manager and a member of the team who is producing work/deliverables. Their primary role might be a strategist, designer, or developer. They own the “vision” for the project and see it through from start to finish.

Producers are deeply involved in projects because they are making strategic decisions and delving into the details.

After a year-and-a-half of learning account management on the job, I started to transition into a different role. I was soaking up digital strategy like a sponge and lucky to be given tons of opportunity to write copy and participate in UX research and planning.

As I took on more and more strategy tasks, new account managers were hired. Suddenly I found myself on the other side of the equation. I was one of the ones responsible for doing the work, not just reporting on it.

If I had a nagging feeling that something was missing from our process when I was an account manager, it came into full view once I became a full-time strategist. The gaps became clear because I could see them from both our team and client’s perspectives.

I was beginning to understand the power of good project management. I realized that I had the power to affect change on the project from the inside. My actions, how I planned deliverables, how I collaborated with designers and developers, it all affected the budget, scope, and timeline directly. I could no longer shrug and blame my team for missing deadlines; I was the team now.

I created feature lists and worked closer with my teammates and directors to determine how much effort to put where to stay in budget. I followed the project from start to finish, staying invested in ensuring the vision we dreamed up with the client was coming to fruition. And because I knew what a challenge it was to be an AM, I did all I could to give them accurate information about the project and help arm them with the knowledge they needed to build and protect trust with the client.

Without knowing it, I had stepped tentatively into what might be called a digital producer role.

Project managers versus digital producers

The downsides of the “producer” role

• It can be exhausting to context switch so often during the day, from deep work to project management. Drawing clear boundaries and time blocking can help.
• Expectations and boundaries can get blurry because this role has so many responsibilities. It can be easy for them to take on too much.
• Seeing the whole project clearly becomes difficult when you’re in the weeds.
• Doing what’s best for the project can be challenging when it goes against what’s best for you as an individual doing work within the project

Why the “producer” role works for me now

When I started at my current role at Kick Point, I fully intended to work as a digital strategist only. But once you start to understand the reasons why projects go sideways, it’s hard not to step in with scaffolding. Project management was calling my name. After Dana, one of our partners here, suggested I try Louder Than Ten, I finally had the opportunity to formalize all these fuzzy ideas I had around how digital projects could run.

After doing the three-month Digital Project Management Foundations course, I found myself with a clear path for how to properly run a digital project from start to finish. It was empowering to hear from leaders in this space and from other digital PMs who had real answers to the questions I’d always had.

Our team gave me full leeway to try new things, experiment with new processes, and overhaul anything that wasn’t serving us anymore. Everyone was receptive and excited about the changes, and we’re all reaping the rewards of the hard work we’ve all put into improving our projects.

In my role now, I’m an AM-producer hybrid. I am involved on most custom website redesign projects from kickoff to launch. I lead most meetings, put together timelines and tasks lists for our team, run point on communications with the client, do discovery strategy work, create scope documentation, feature lists, sitemaps and content structure, sketch wireframes, and plan out the CMS admin setup with our developer. Once the site is developed, I do content entry, client CMS training, write titles and meta descriptions for the site, and put together redirects lists.

It can be a big job, but being involved on that level throughout the project keeps my eye on the big picture at every step, ensuring we’re meeting our goals, deadlines, and managing scope.

As Jen, the other partner in our agency, said, “I think when a person is immersed in tasks and strategies and also speaks directly with clients, they buy in in a way different way than if they are just tracking progress.”

We’re hitting a new phase where I’m handling web projects over a certain budget and complexity, and one of my coworkers will manage anything smaller. Many of the processes and systems are now in place so that these smaller projects don’t take much effort to run, so another strategist, designer, or developer can manage a project or two without being overloaded.

I’m grateful that the leaders at Kick Point have been so flexible and understanding of how these roles need to stretch and bend, and none of this would work without a team who is willing to help fill those roles in different capacities.

How do I decide whether I need an account or project manager?

So how do you make the decision about what roles you need on your team and who will fill them?

Here’s a guide:

Look at your people and their strengths

Once you know where the gaps exist, look to your people. Who do you have on your team right now? What do they do well? What are their workloads like?

In the The Louder Than Ten Digital PM and Producer hiring guide’s PM job description, they share a set of personal qualities that are important for both producers and PMs to have:

Leadership, great sense of humour, excellent communication skills, emotionally intelligent, empathetic, masterful expectation management, great attention to detail, fantastic negotiation skills, process adaptable, organized, willingness to learn new things.

Account managers should have a similar set of qualities, but should also be forward-thinking and have the ability to quickly switch between tasks. Account managers will often manage many accounts and need to be readily available for their clients.

Do you have people on your team already who have these qualities? Start by talking with them about what they like about their current position, how they feel about their workload, and whether they are even interested in shifting their roles.

Beware, however, of simply trying to tack on responsibilities to someone who has a full workload already, or isn’t interested in AM or PM.

Consider training

If you have someone interested in taking on some project management tasks, consider training them through the Louder than Ten Apprenticeship program.

What is so valuable about Louder Than Ten is how specific it is to our industry. Learning project management foundations is useful, but it then takes work to apply those to a digital context. They’ve done that work already, so your future PM can just focus on implementing strategies and not applying broad principles.

Consider hiring

Great digital AMs and PMs are out there. It can be tempting to make these roles entry-level, but that’s not always the right move if you don’t have the time to get someone fully trained.

Sometimes you need someone experienced to hop in and make an impact quickly. It all depends on where you’re at as an agency.

If you’re looking for an experienced PM or AM, respect that expertise and be prepared to pay fairly for it. More than likely, you’ll see the returns on that investment in projects that are less stressful, less likely to go over budget, and that finish when they’re supposed to so you can move on to other work.