Are you new to the project sponsor role or want to improve? Here’s some practical guidance from our new book: A Project Sponsor’s Warp-Speed Guide – Improving Project Performance.
Too often, we’ve observed that project sponsors:
- Do not understand this role.
- Are unsure about what others expect.
- Have little or no direct experience with the project subject and mistakenly assume that such a background is essential.
- Are too embarrassed to ask for help.
- Receive no guidance from their organization.
As a result, project sponsors too often retreat to being a cursory figurehead or ignore the role to the detriment of the project. Those outcomes don’t help anyone.
Executives often don’t understand how valuable performing this project sponsor role can be to:
- Reducing the risk of a disappointing project outcome.
- Identifying areas where your intervention is critical to project success.
- Supporting your project manager and the team better.
- Avoiding embarrassing project failure.
Quickly assess your project
Start by completing the warp-speed project assessment at this link. In a few minutes, you will understand the topics that need more attention to reduce the project’s shortcomings and increase its likelihood of success. The short project assessment contains the most common topics that can contribute to either project success or failure.
Determine your actions to address shortcomings
Now you’ve determined the topics that need some attention. Find those sections in the book. They provide collaborative actions you can take as a project sponsor to reduce risk and improve your project’s performance.
Here are a few example topics from the book that can contribute to either project success or failure, with actions to correct a high-risk situation. For each topic, there are two brief descriptions to help you determine if the topic needs more attention. Where there’s a risk of disappointment, there are recommended actions to reduce risk and increase the likelihood of project success.
Project business case
Starting a project without a business case is like trying to hit a bull’s eye with a dart while blindfolded. You’ll never reach your project goal.
If you’re concerned, pause the project and construct the business case. A business analyst on the team knows how to do this. Give them the time and resources to research and build a legitimate business case.
Once the business case is complete, review it with your steering committee. If it’s not credible, improve it or cancel the project now.
Project charter
Approving a project without a consensus among the stakeholders on what the project is to achieve makes project failure inevitable.
If you’re concerned, ensure the project manager feels supported in developing a project charter by providing the necessary inputs. Even a good project manager might not create a project charter because they felt pressure to “just start the project now” and not take time to develop a project charter.
To help your team understand what a project charter should contain, please have them read this short monograph: Project Charter Table of Contents.
Project management plan
The most important support a project sponsor can give the team is enough time to plan the project accurately. Too often, we observe project sponsors that push the team to hurry the planning or even stop it to start the project work. This push is a false economy.
If you’re concerned, instruct your project manager to work with the team to draft a comprehensive project management plan. To help your team understand what a project charter should contain, please have them read this short monograph: Project Management Plan Table of Contents.
Become a more effective project sponsor
To help you better understand what you should do as a project sponsor, please read this short monograph: Role of Project Sponsors.
You can explore these and other topics in our new book: A Project Sponsor’s Warp-Speed Guide – Improving Project Performance. It’s available from Amazon at this link.
What ideas can you contribute to help project sponsors? We’d love to read your opinion. You can share that with us below. Select the checkmark for agreement or the X for disagreement. In either case, you’ll be asked if you also want to send your comments directly to our editorial team.
