There are two fields which govern who can open a project and to whom actuals are sent by team members. The Owner of the project is the person who first created the project and saved it in the Project Server database. The Owner field is a default field in the Summary view of the Project Center, and can be used for filtering and grouping.

The Manager of the project is the person who initially publishes the resource assignments in the project, and is the person to whom task updates are directed in Project Web Access. This information can be seen on the View My Tasks page by each team member assigned to tasks in a project.

To become the Owner of a project, the new manager should do the following:

• Log into Project Web Access
• Apply the Project Center Page
• Select their New Project
• Click the Edit Project Details Button
• Select the new Owner of the Project
• Click the Save and Close Button

To become the Manager of the project, so that task updates will be redirected to him/her, the new manager should do the following:

• Open Microsoft Project and log into Project Server
• Open the Project in Question
• Click Collaborate - Publish - Republish Assignments
• Select the "Become the manager of these assignments" option
• Click the OK button

That's how to do it. I think you were confusing the terms "Owner" and "Manager" and not understanding how each of these fields functions within the system. Hope this helps.