David Swain (asker) Jan 5, 2014:

Thanks Didier. Your contribution is helpful and welcome.

Didier Fourcot Jan 5, 2014:

French difference in a nutshell Maître d'ouvrage: owns the "ouvrage" ie the finished works: building in construction, software sources and title in SW development...
Maître d'œuvre: owns the work, ie the way to make the "ouvrage", ie the work site, machines and workers for construction, programmers and resources for software development

Example in construction: MOA is the owner of the land who wants to build a house on it, MOE is the main contractor in charge of building the house

Example in SW development: MOA is the bank that needs a mobile app, MOE is the software development company that will program it in Flash

David Swain (asker) Jan 5, 2014:

Thanks again. You answers have cleared things up for me nicely. As a native English speaker, I can confirm that I am happy with the aforementioned terms if you are happy with the concepts :-)

patrickfor Jan 5, 2014:

Some misunderstanding here I guess.
If you are the Business side and you are too busy (or whatever...) you can have an outside company doing that for you. The same applies for the IT side if you do not have the staff you can ask a company to do that bit for you.
As a matter of fact one of the company I used to work for (CapGemini) was doing that for clients... on both sides.
About the suggested translations I would add Business to project owner to make it clear. But only an englishman can tell what is necessary to add or not...
// MOA and MOE are not job titles they are activities. There are an MOA side and an MOE side. You can be a manager, an analyst on any side doing a different job.

David Swain (asker) Jan 5, 2014:

Thanks patrickfor. I don't think that will work because "MOA" and "MOE" are both services being provided by the tendering company. I'm currently thinking "project owner" (MOA, see http://www.commentcamarche.net/contents/983-maitrise-d-ouvra... and "project manager" (MOE). What is your view on those translations?

patrickfor Jan 5, 2014:

One has to be careful because there is a whole methodology behind the words...
If I had to I will propose
- MOA Business owner
- MOE IT Project owner

Owner because it clearly states who has responsability for what.
IT project because project is ambiguous (I think).
From the business point of view the implementation of a new application is also a project and as such will be managed with some project management tool too...

David Swain (asker) Jan 5, 2014:

Thanks for your input patrickfor. How would you translate the 2 terms?

patrickfor Jan 5, 2014:

In very basic terms in IT (France) MOA is the client MOE is the doer.
By the client I mean the business people using the software, the doer is building the software. Nothing to do with contracter/sub-contracted.
MOA is "WHAT WE WANT" and MOE is "HOW WE DO IT". There is project management on both sides.
http://www.experteer.fr/offre-emploi/emploi-de/directeur-de-...

David Swain (asker) Jan 5, 2014:

Yes, I am aware. Sorry, I should have made clear that I understand that MOA is "maîtrise d'ouvrage" and MOE is "maître d'oeuvre". I am aware that that there are many translations of each in the glossary; in an IT context, they both seem to be translated "project management", despite clearly being different things. I would like to know what the difference is in an IT context and, if possible, what the translation for each term is.

Catharine Cellier-Smart Jan 5, 2014:

Maîtrise d'ouvrage and maitre d'oeuvre Hi David I'm not clear from your question whether you've understood that MOA is very probably "maîtrise d'ouvrage" and MOE is "maître d'oeuvre"? They both have plenty of translations in the glossary.