Many executives are assigned as project sponsors, but their organizations do not spend time training and explaining their expected roles and responsibilities. Thus, many executive sponsors end up in this “unclear” role “by accident.” This presentation provides sponsors with what is expected of them and how successful sponsors do it.
Introduction
Many executives are assigned as project sponsors, but their organizations do not spend time training and explaining their expected roles and responsibilities during project life cycles. Thus, many sponsors end up in the role “by accident.”
In our experience, the sponsor role is unclear in many organizations. Sometimes the sponsor is not very involved in the project. Sometimes the sponsor is too involved and tries to act as a sort of super project manager, generating conflict and problems. Management support is always needed during the project life cycle. The project needs but a single sponsor. Multiple sponsorship usually turns out to equal no sponsorship. Effective sponsorship is an essential discipline for all projects and can be the difference between a success and a high profile and expensive disaster. Sponsors must be able to translate the reasons for a project into a practical and well-articulated remits for project teams to deliver.
In short, to be able to provide effective management support, sponsors need to know what is expected of them; they must be both the guardians and translators of the interest of investors and funders.
This paper summarizes the seven practices that the most successful sponsor uses to direct their projects.
1. Business Objectives and Leadership
In fact, motivation is the only secret to success. Motivation of every individual in the organization is crucial for successful projects. It is the motivation of top management that counts the most. The top management can only be motivated by business results. A project or program without sound business objectives cannot secure the sponsorships of top management. Strong sponsorship requires measurable business targets that are related to the results of project.
Typical business objectives for product or service development
- Less cost
- Fast delivery
- Less defects
- More features
The sponsor should personally be involved in project activities by asking the right questions. The project will be successful only if the sponsor knows the right questions to ask. Asking the right questions requires knowledge of the purpose of the project; i.e., expected business outcomes. Questions should help people focus on the right direction. The right direction is always the direction that leads to positive business results.
2. Separation of Powers and Ceasing Over-Commitment
Successful sponsors are aware that organizations at lower maturity tend to give promises more than their abilities. Their inabilities generally come from their ill-designed organizational structure, poor processes, and lack of necessary resources.
Furthermore, for a successful project, the sponsor should assign these three roles to different people: Project Management (PM), Quality Assurance (AQ), and Execution. QA will provide objective information, PM will punish/award, and Execution will be punished/awarded.
3. Awarding System
Successful sponsors ensure there is a clearly defined awarding system in place for the project. The awarding system defines WHAT will be awarded, HOW and WHEN.
Seeing that project teams are heading toward a new era of responsibility, it follows that it is essential to motivate the project teams. To this end, one must consider the degree to which the assumption of responsibility is closely linked to motivation in one's work. Successful sponsors give close thought on the importance of incentives, which may decisively contribute to both personnel management and organizational procedures. Incentives are a tool for personnel management because they represent a combination of inputs through which the administration seeks to increase the probability that, in this case, project team members behave, and thus act, appropriately to reach the project's aims, thereby avoiding actions deemed ineffective. Rewarding those who produce valid results favors a good working climate, both reinforcing and boosting the motivation and commitment to being good professionals.
4. Correct Planning and Monitoring
Successful delivery requires planning, resource allocation, monitoring, verification, validation, configuration management, and so forth.
Quick wins should be identified and the progress should be visible in short periods of times. Even the small successes should be recognized and celebrated. Successful sponsors monitor the progress through a few vital metrics. They focus on the most crucial issues by using the 80/20 rule.
Successful sponsors embrace agile techniques as much as possible (e.g., such techniques as, “fail early, learn fast”; “build-measure-learn)
5. Result-Oriented WBS
Experienced sponsors know there are many things that can go wrong in projects regardless of how successfully they plan and execute their work. Component or full-project failures, when they do occur, can often be traced to a poorly developed or nonexistent work breakdown structure (WBS). A poorly constructed WBS can result in adverse project outcomes, including ongoing, repeated project re-plans and extensions, unclear work assignments, scope creep or unmanageable, frequently changing scope, budget overrun, missed deadlines and unusable new products or delivered features.
It is clear the WBS provides an unambiguous statement of the objectives and deliverables of the work to be performed. It represents an explicit description of the project's scope, deliverables and outcomes—the what of the project. The WBS is not a description of the processes followed to perform the project… nor does it address the schedule that defines how or when the deliverables will be produced; rather, it is specifically limited to describing and detailing the project's outcomes or scope. The WBS is a foundational project management component, and as such is a critical input to other project management processes and deliverables such as activity definitions, project schedule network diagrams, project and program schedules, performance reports, risk analysis and response, control tools or project organization
6. Tools are Just Tools!
Identifying, acquiring, and using the correct tools belong to the later phases of a project. The first step is to create people committed, able, capable, responsible, and believing in the project and eager to deliver. Tools should follow then to help these people in performing their tasks. We should not forget that tools will not create committed, able, capable, and responsible people.
7. Sustainable Results
Successful projects should be acknowledged and celebrated. Success of a project has to be defined in terms of business outcomes. Importance of measuring the success of a project in terms of business outcomes have already been covered in “Business Objective and Leadership.” Successful sponsors here go one step further and show consideration for the sustainability of the businesses outcomes targeted by the project. So, they ensure the maintenance and business continuity aspects are covered in the definition of the success and they are observed in project monitoring and control.
Conclusion
Management support is always needed during the project life cycle. Effective sponsorship is an essential discipline for all projects and can be the difference between success and a high profile and expensive disaster. The sponsor acts as a lynch-pin between the board and the project manager, communicating and translating requirements downward and resource needs, progress, and constraints back upward.
The following seven practices are suggested for sponsors:
- Business Objectives and Leadership
- Separation of Powers ann Ceasing Over-Commitment
- Awarding System
- Correct Planning and Monitoring
- Result-Oriented WBS
- Tools are Just Tools!
- Sustainable Results
References
Englund, R. L., & Alfonso, B. (2006). Project sponsorship. USA: Jossey-Bass.
Kalayci, O. (2012). Seven Success Factors for Successful CMMI Implementations. SEPG 2012 North America, Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA.
Kalayci, O. (2007). Seven Success Factors for Successful CMMI Implementations. 7th Annual CMMI Technology Conference & User Group, NDIA, Denver, Colorado, USA.
West, D. (2010). Project sponsorship. UK: Gower Publishing.