Who is the senior marketing director or project manager?

Question

Project management

1. Which of these two professions is higher in position?
2. Can the project manager give direction to the marketing department on a project, or does the marketing department give directions to the project manager?

Answer 1

1. Strictly speaking, there can be several projects in the company, then the marketing director is higher in the hierarchy, because in theory, he manages the marketing of not only projects, but also the company itself.
2. This is called a matrix management structure for a marketer in the marketing department, there are 2 managers - one marketing director, the other project manager. In the diagram below, Functional Manager 1 is the Marketing Director. Process manager 1 - project manager. And performer 11 is a marketer.
In this case, it is correct for the project manager to either give instructions to the head of the marketing department (and he will distribute them within his department) or give instructions directly to the marketer, but again agreed with the head of the marketing department.

Answer 2

In Apple, it is widely known that they are the most important in prototyping.
Other offices are different. It happens that they make a product and try to get it on the market somehow. It is obvious that in such offices everything is set - marketing is in the pen.
Answer:
It depends on the specific enterprise. It could be like this or that.

Answer 3

According to observations, in our offices, as a rule, feudalism. Therefore, the Chief is notified about everything, and he gives instructions to whom and what to do. And formal subordination works only within the unit. Accordingly, the schemes as in the pictures in the books do not fully reflect reality.

Answer 4

What does by position mean?
If we are talking about a project and some kind of product or series of products, then, of course, marketing. The task of marketing is to satisfy the needs of potential users and make money from it. It is marketing that manages how the product will look like, and the project manager organizes all the necessary activities in order to bring all marketing ideas to life.
If the project does not have a marketing officer or a PM higher than him, then this is a failure. Any product that aims to earn money is driven by marketing.
If the PM with his pack of professionals believes that marketing offers stupid features, then this whole pack goes down the drain, since in 99% of situations marketing is working on business models and everything they offer to implement is the result of analysis, thinking. Of course, with a share of risk and chances, but this is at least some kind of analysis, unlike the frequent recommendations of the performer's team based on taste.