Submitted by Gareth on
in
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Hi All,
In a job description... how do you differ between ownership and responsibility?
I work in telecoms and moving into a new role following a successful interview (thanks MT!) which is a fairly big promotion for me.
I'm reviewing the job description before my 1st April start as it needs a quick tidy up to reflect the full role. Thankfully I'm 80% aware of what is required but once I have that 80% documented I can get to 100% during a review with my new line manager.
This brings me on to the difficulty I am having... perhaps i'm just having a slow day?!
How do you differ between ownership and responsibility?
Example 1 - I will have ownership/responsibility for a dedicated network made up of multiple components from a number of suppliers and also the service running across that network
In this example do I 'own' the network and have a 'responsibility' for delivering the service within the agreed SLAs to our customer?
Example 2 - I will have ownership/responsibility for the supplier relationships.
In this example do I 'own' the relationship and have a 'responsibility' for ensuring they are delivery to their contract?
Thanks in advance,
Gareth
I'm sure the exact meaning
I'm sure the exact meaning varies greatly from company to company, but here's how I think of it:
If you have ownership, you could shut it down and start a new one if you saw fit to do so. If you need someone else's permission to shut it down, then you are responsible for maintaining/operating it while the other person whose permission you had to request has ownership of it.