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The Problem with Project Sponsors

March 22, 2010 | Author: PM Hut | Filed under: Project Management Musings

The Problem with Project Sponsors
By John Gough

It is generally accepted that keeping your project team close and your project sponsors closer, is a way to ensure project success. After all these are the stakeholders that provide that vital link to the business. Keeping this group of stakeholders sweet, will usually keep the rest of the business off your back.

Stakeholder support is the rotor that keeps any project afloat, but the problem with project sponsors is that they have got to where they are, by climbing a very dirty greasy pole. They now have a privileged aerial view of the executive landscape, and they fully intend to stay there. The slightest hint or whiff of them being on the wrong side of an issue, especially if it is your project that is the issue, then it is odds on that you will lose your project patronage, faster than a tear can roll down Gordon Brown’s cheek.

Management of project sponsorship is usually conducted at a programme level, and most programme managers have not just arrived on a push bike. Programme managers innately understand the problem with project sponsors. They know that they are fickle friends, which have to be kept onside. They understand that project communication must be managed.

Therefore is it best to come clean with project issues immediately, or should we wait? Could be we can fix it before the next Highlight Report is due. If we are running behind schedule or over budget, there is always the opportunity to get back on track before we have to report again. If we do report the real project status now, it will only lead to investigation and recrimination which will ultimately delay the project anyway.

If you thought spin was confined to Number 10, think again. How can 70% of project fail? Often because project sponsors do not want to hear bad news, and programme managers do not want to tell it.

John Gough works with major organisations in both the public and private sector to make change happen. John is the Principal Consultant & Director of iJounery, a Project Management consulting company.

This entry was posted on Monday, March 22nd, 2010 and is filed under Project Management Musings. 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.

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