Project Sponsorship

ThisSkillPower workshop is for managers who are or will be project sponsors. The secondary audience is project managers – those most dependent on project sponsors to set the stage and support their success.

“Excellence in project sponsorship can be

viewed as a competitive advantage.”

KPMG NZ Survey

Jim Young

Jim Young FNZIM is a Project Management Professional (PMP) and PRINCE2 Practitioner who holds a MBA in International Management and a Doctoral degree in Business Administration. Initially educated at Hokitika District High School NZ and Duntroon Military College in Australia, Jim served as a career officer in the NZ Army, and then managed a commercial transport organisation, after which he joined NZIM, becoming their Principal Consultant before establishing his own training company SkillPower Ltd.

Jim has managed a wide variety of projects and has written several papers and two substantial textbooks on project management, and developed a number of management handbooks for organisations. Jim has recently published a comprehensive book on project risk management - “Managing Murphy”. He is familiar with most project management frameworks including the PMI PMBOK and UK PRINCE2 and keeps up to date with developments in this emerging profession and with leadership and management generally.

Jim is recognised as a capable, knowledgeable and enthusiastic trainer. He has a practical, participatory and interactive workshop style.

Learning objectives

On the completion of this half-day workshop, participants will be familiar with:

  1. Project management organizational structures and respective roles and responsibilities of the project sponsor, project steering committee and project manager, credentials needed to be an effective sponsor, and how to run a steering committee.
  1. Overview of the project life cycle and fundamental principles and processes needed for successful project management.
  1. Project conception and selection process and attributes including strategic alignment, preparation and content of project concept checklist, definition statement, business case and charter documents, and updating these as required, selecting the project manager, enabling their success, establishing reporting and control arrangements, and principal stakeholder management.
  1. Approving the project implementation plan, monitoring project management efficiency and effectiveness, and approving as appropriate variations, and risk and issue responses that are beyond the project manager’s delegated authority to implement.
  1. Assessing and reporting project management efficiency, and tracking and achieving post-project business case outcomes and benefits.

Foreword

Effective governance is essential for project success. It involves ensuring that the right projects are done properly. The project sponsor’s role in governance includes owning the business case, being responsible for ensuring that promised benefits are harvested, and acting as de facto governor of the project.

Project sponsors are typically those who have authority to approve projects, appoint project managers, allocate resources to projects, and provide higher-level direction to ensure successful completion of projects and delivery of their benefits.

The sponsor is the manager in the performing organisation who authorises the project, allocates funds and other resources to perform it, and has ultimate responsibility for its success.

Conceptually, the sponsor has a business need for the project, the organisation grants the sponsor the money and resources for the project, and the sponsor then contracts with the project manager to undertake the project.

In project organisation terms, the project manager works for the project sponsor, who works for the business. The sponsor’s focus is on the project business objectives. The sponsor usually chairs the project steering committee, which includes managers from those functional departments involved in resourcing the project and/or realising the project benefits.

While the project manager performs the day-to-day function, the sponsor provides the executive authority needed to overcome organisational obstacles. The sponsor ensures the overall viability of the project and ‘owns and maintains’ the business case.

It is naïve to expect excellent sponsorship practices to happen by accident or wishful thinking. Sponsors need training and practical experience. Indeed, one of the most common reasons why projects fall short is a lack of suitable sponsorship, according to the KPMG NZ Project Management Survey 2010.

Being an effective project sponsor requires striking a balance of involvement and trust in the project manager and project team. Some sponsors are passive, others micromanage, and some are too busy attending to other responsibilities. Project sponsors must effectively communicate the organisation’s vision, goals and expectations to the project team throughout the life cycle without crossing theline into micromanagement or what I call ‘snoopervision.’ The project manager and sponsor need to agree their respective roles and aim to work in coopertive harmony.

The sponsor must also keep the organisation apprised of the project’s progress and benefits, advocating for it at every turn. The sponsor should cultivate a positive environment and generate a positive buzz for the project’s benefits and do so each day. They need to constantly let people know what the project is and why it is important to the organisation. It’s a difficult role, but one that can ensure project success.

Without clear, effective sponsorship, a project is unlikely to have the means to gain and retain support within the organisation, overcome the tendency to resist change and secure necessary resources.

Unfortunately, good sponsorship is often harder to find than is good project management and significantly less investment, focus and support is usually given to managers who fulfil the project sponsor role. However, it’s reassuring that your organisation recognises the importance of this role and has organised this seminar. I trust you find it useful.

Jim Young

Project Management

Trainer and Consultant

Terminology - what is a project sponsor?

Every discipline has its terminology, an agreed understanding of which should help communications. It can be frustrating, but every discipline has its peculiar terminology. Some common project management terms are defined at the rear of this book. A project methodology usually consists of principles, processes and a glossary of terms.

However, we need to be careful when communicating particularly with our clients and external stakeholders, some of whom could find our use of specialised terminology patronising or even alienating. It’s seen as linguistic tribalism. The use of such language can be annoying and even intimidating if you’re not in the tribe. Its use might also cement unfortunate stereotypes.

Generally we understand a ‘sponsor’ to be one who assumes responsibility for another person or group during a period of instruction, apprenticeship, or probation.

In the project management context, the term ‘sponsor’ first emerged in 1990 when Briner, Geddes and Hastings, in their book, ‘Project Leadership’, described the project sponsor as the ‘project manager’s boss.’ Turner (1993) saw the sponsor as the ‘owner’ of the project, and Morris (1994) suggested that the project sponsor was the project advocate who provided internal political support for the project, secured its funding, and ensured it delivered the desired business outcomes.And this is pretty much today’s description:

  • “The project sponsor is the executive who ensures the project is focused throughout its lifecycle on achieving its goal and delivering a product or service that will achieve its forecast benefits.”

Some other descriptions are:

  • “The project sponsor is the business advocate and is responsible for ensuring that the conditions for project success are achieved and for ensuring the overall viability of the project. The project sponsor is the owner of the business case and is the primary risk taker within a project.”
  • “The project sponsor is the governor of the project who wants the project, usually because it will benefit them or their organisation in some way.”
  • “The project sponsor is the person with formal authority who is ultimately responsible for the project. A sponsor may be a senior manager or a junior manager depending mainly on the size of the project.”
  • “The project sponsor authorises the project or programme, has a real stake in the outcome, and is accountable for the project’s performance.”
  • The project sponsor is the person or group that funds the project and creates the environment that allows the project manager to succeed.”
  • “The project sponsor is the de facto project ‘governor’ who ensures that the project purpose is appropriate to the organisation and that a suitable structure is in place to achieve that purpose.”
  • “The sponsor defines, defends and supports the project from conception through to benefits realisation.”

The project manager is the person accountable to the project sponsor for the day-to-day management of the project to produce the final deliverable on time, to the right quality, and within budget. Because the sponsor and the project manager will ideally be working closely from project start to finish, both need a clear understanding of their respective roles that they develop together. A sponsor who gets immersed in the detail of the project’s daily execution makes it difficult for the project manager to fulfil their role. In essence, it would be fair to say:

  • The project sponsor authorises the project and is mostly benefits focused.
  • The project manager executes the project and is mostly delivery focused.

Project Deliverables / Project Benefits
  • new product
  • new technology
  • updated code of ethics
  • new OSH procedures
  • revised HR protocols
  • new processes
  • software training course
  • revised strategic plan
  • reduced cycle time
/
  • increased revenue
  • reduced costs
  • improved image
  • improved safety
  • reduced turnover
  • reduced wastage
  • improved productivity
  • better teamwork
  • time saved

Hierarchy ofproject work

There is no universal agreement, but the generally accepted hierarchy of project work is shown here. In fact, a Work Package might be viewed as small project that we do ourselves, delegate to a staff member, or contract out.

A programme consists oftwo or more closely related projects, sometimes the consequence of breaking up a single project that has become too large to properly manage, whereas a portfolio is a number of related and unrelated projects assigned an organisation, team or individual. Thus, an organisation can possess a portfolio of projects and so can an individual.
Project parameters

Typically the sponsor sets the purpose, goal and parameters, and the project manager works within the parameters to achieve the goal. Together they may need to agree some trade-offs among these parameters as reality unfolds.

Project organisation

People are still struggling in their attempts to define the role and position of the project sponsor. Some people use the terms ‘sponsor’, ‘champion’ and ‘owner’ interchangeably. Essentially sponsors are the bridge that connects project work effort and the organisation’s strategic goals as established by senior management.

team member
project manager
project sponsor
steering committee
project auditor
project consultant
customer / reviews
directs
advises
drives
delivers
funds
uses

Of course the sponsor is not merely responsible for funding the project and showing up when it’s completed. The sponsor has an overall responsibility for project success and realising its value for the organisation.

Matrix organisation

The matrix organisation can be a recipe for conflict between project managers (resource borrowers) and line managers (resource owners), where the project sponsor’s intervention and assistance is sometimes needed to ensure the project has timely access to the required functional resources.

Also, while line managers have a resonsibility to develop their staff, project managers may be keen to avoid time-consuming training, coaching, counselling and mentoring of their ‘borrowed’ team members at least in terms of their technical expertise. Nevertheless, a project usually offers plenty of on-the-job opportunity for non-technical training about which the project manager and line manager should cooperate in the interests of the staff member’s on-going development. One means to help is to buddy up new project team members with more experienced project team members.

Project teambuilding is important to ensure that all team members cooperate towards achieving the same project goal. A project team is a peculiar team in that each member is likely to have another boss – their line manager. Also, the composition of the team is likely to change as the project proceeds and different skill sets are needed. Thus, time and budget for teambuilding needs to be built -into the project plan.

Conflicts occur for a variety of reasons. Project managers report that conflicts typically arise over the following seven points of contention:

1. Priorities of tasks and objectives. Participants often have different views about the proper sequence of tasks and about the importance of tasks and objectives. Such differences not only occur within the project team but also between the project team and functional departments, as well as between the team and the client.

2. Administrative procedures. Disagreements often arise over how a project will be managed---for example, over the definition of the project manager's reporting relationships and responsibilities, operational requirements, interdepartmental work agreements, and levels of administrative support.

3. Technical opinions. The less routine a project, the more likely it is that there are differences of opinion about the "best way" to accomplish the task. Disagreements may arise over specifications, technical trade-offs, and techniques to achieve the required performance.

4. Staffing and resource allocations. Conflicts arise over how best to allocate people to various projects and within project assignments. One team member complains that she always gets the "grunt work" while others get the glamorous assignments. Not only do individuals disagree over which projects their functional manager should assign them to, but they also face competing demands from their project manager and functional manager. This leads to both interpersonal strife and personal stress.

5. Costs and budgets. "How much is this going to cost?" and "Why is this costing so much?" are frequent sources of disagreement throughout a project. These differences often arise because it is difficult to estimate costs in the face of uncertainty. A functional manager, for example, may see the funds allocated by the project manager as insufficient for the work requested, while the client may feel that costs are too high.

6. Schedules. A constant source of tension is the client asking "How long is this going to take?" while the project team feels "I don't have enough time allocated to do a quality job." The tension really arises because we are dealing with estimates about the future, and the future can seldom be predicted with certainty. At the other extreme, if in making our estimates we take into account all the possible things that could happen, the project might never be completed. Further, tension is often generated around the sequencing of events, as in the case of "Finish the documentation on this project before starting to programme the next portion of the new accounting system."

7. Interpersonal and personality clashes. Conflicts arise not just over technical issues but also over "style" or "ego centered" issues like status, power, control, self-esteem, and friendships. Such conflicts may emerge from real personality and style differences, but often they are based on differences that emerge from departmental or organisational factors like varying past experience and different perspectives on time horizons.

Project lifecycle

The project manager’s main responsibilities mainly span the Develop, Execute and Finish phases, whereas the project sponsor’s responsibilities span the entire project lifecycle including project Conception, plus the project product or service lifecycle or lifespan when project outcomes and benefits are achieved. The project will normally have been closed before the benefits have been realised.

As a project sponsor it is important to understand the challenges inherent in projects. Any of the following may need the sponsor’s intervention should the issue be beyond the project manager’s authority to resolve. However, a top problem could be inert governance.

  • Inert Governance. The project sponsor and steering committee don’t always provide appropriate higher-level help and guidance, sometimes because they don’t understand their roles and responsibilities, sometimes because the sponsor does not have sufficient decision-making authority. Also, they may be too high or too low in the organisation or meet too much or not enough with the project manager. The sponsor’s and steering committee’s terms of reference need to be clearly stated. Effective governance is critical for project success. Sponsors need to be willing and able.
  • Clients. Essential to any project, clients notoriously mis-state what they want, and what they want isn’t always what they need. Furthermore, clients change their minds during the project. There is a need to define the project as clearly as possible with the client in the first instance and also agree how to manage those inevitable changes as needs continue to evolve.
  • Risk. A project is unique, and as such, risk and uncertainty may be significant, especially at the start of the project. Also, sometimes there is a tendency not to disclose risk or to understate risk to protect the project status and team members’ morale. There is a need to honestly, objectively, comprehensively and continuously analyse risk and pre-empt problems throughout the project.
  • Constraints.