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How to Pick a Good Project Sponsor

July 28, 2010 | Author: PM Hut | Filed under: Project Management Guides

How to Pick a Good Project Sponsor
By Peter Taylor

Critical to any projects success is having a good project sponsor, but, like the saying goes ‘you can pick your friends but you can’t pick your relatives’ and the same is true of project sponsors.

So what makes a good project sponsor and how do you deal with the one you have just inherited for your project?

The Project Sponsor is the key stakeholder representative for the project and provides the necessary support for the Project Manager with the primary responsibility of achievement of the project objectives and benefits. An inappropriate choice of Project Sponsor can seriously impact the possibility of success of the project and provide you, the project manager, with an unwanted additional overhead.

Now you can’t practically ask a sponsor for their CV and put them through a formal interview process, nice as it would be sometimes to utter the phrase ‘I’m sorry but I just don’t think that this is the job for you right now’. But you should evaluate the sponsor you have and complete, in a subtle way of course, a ‘Strengths and Weaknesses ‘assessment so that you can adapt your project approach and communication methods to maximize their sponsorship support for the project that you now manage.

Tip: At your first meeting with the sponsor don’t ask ‘hard’ project questions but ask ‘softer’ and more open questions: ‘What are your hopes for this project? What are your fears about this project?’ – You will learn a whole lot more.

But let’s not be pessimistic, that isn’t going to happen to you, you won’t get an extreme case of project sponsor and they won’t fail the ‘interview’. So, what is your next move? Well perhaps you should consider the power base that your project sponsor has. Use the power grid to assess your project sponsor, assess their rating of interest in this project from high to low and their actual power in the organization, also from high to low.

Power vs Interest

Power vs. Interest

This will give you an indication of the way in which you should work with them.

Actually this power grid is for all project stakeholders and if you end up with a project sponsor that is in the ‘low interest’ and ‘low power’ quadrant you really have a problem. It is unlikely that this sponsor is ever going to support your management endeavors.

Despite his title of ‘The Lazy Project Manager’, Peter Taylor is in fact a dynamic and commercially astute professional who has achieved notable success in project management, program management and the professional development of project managers: latterly as Head of Projects at a global supplier of performance system solutions, and currently as Director of a PMO at Siemens PLM Software, a global supplier of product lifecycle management solutions. He is an accomplished communicator and leader; always adopting a proactive and business-focused approach. He is also the author of ‘The Lazy Project Manager’ book (Infinite Ideas 2009) – for more information - www.thelazyprojectmanager.com - you can also subscribe to a series of free podcasts on iTunes (The Lazy Project Manager).

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 28th, 2010 and is filed under Project Management Guides. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

2 people have left comments

I would add that you need to define what you expect of the Project Sponsor and owner in the Project Charter or PMP and get them to signoff. This way the responsibilities are dicussed and written down.

Kendall wrote on July 28, 2010 - 11:38 pm | Visit Link

Peter,

I love this topic.

Unfortunately, as project managers we will have to deal with sub-par project sponsors every now and then.

When we end up with one, we need to remember that is not our job to fix them. It is the organization’s job.

I think that organizations get the project sponsors they deserve.

If the project sponsor is disengaged and does not care about the project, it is because the organization sends the signal that this is acceptable or that at least this is tolerable.

We know that organizations tolerate mediocre managers. And mediocre managers make mediocre project sponsors. As a result, organizations end up with the project results they deserve.

Thank you for tackling this issue.

Samad Aidane
http://www.GuerrillaProjectManagement.com

Samad Aidane wrote on August 7, 2010 - 3:07 am | Visit Link

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