You need X-Ray glasses to deal with invisible project sponsors!

It’s hard to argue that effective project sponsorship is a critical success factor.  Whether it is through providing funding for the project, exerting influence to avoid roadblocks or supporting and championing the behavior changes that must occur to achieve expected business results, the absence of good sponsorship can leave a Project Manager feeling like they’ve jumped out of a plane with no parachute.

There are multiple possible causes for poor sponsorship including an inconsistent understanding of the role & its responsibilities, a lack of good governance practices related to project selection, prioritization or initiation, as well as missing links between project results and sponsor performance objectives.

There are equally as many methods of improving the situation – some are within the control of a project team, while others require systemic or governance changes.

Some foundation changes that can improve results include:

• A consistent, organization-wide communicated definition of the expectations and responsibilities of a project sponsor.  This definition should be signed off by the C-levels.
• Tying annual evaluations and bonuses for sponsors to project performance
• Incorporating evaluations and feedback from project teams as an input into the sponsor’s annual evaluations
• Required involvement and sign-off from project sponsors on project charters

A project team could try some of the following approaches:

• The PM should meet with the sponsor as early as possible to understand the sponsor’s expectations but also to convey the project team’s expectations for the sponsor.  Issues or risks identified in that meeting should be responded to or escalated promptly.  Beyond this meeting, the PM should regularly meet with the sponsor as a medium for the PM to provide constructive feedback about the sponsor’s “performance”.
• The sponsor should be asked to play a significant role in the kickoff meeting.  Beyond stating the vision and expected outcomes for the project, the sponsor could re-state the expectations for their role at this meeting.
• The sponsor’s name should figure prominently in all key project documents including regular status reports.
• The PM should respect the sponsor’s expectations for information updates, and should neither keep the sponsor “in the dark” nor overwhelm them with minutiae.
• The project team as a whole should ensure that project information that the sponsor is exposed to is accurate, complete and business impact focused.  Similarly, the decision-making approach used by the PM and team should be focused on business value impacts.
• The sponsor should be requested to attend periodic reviews of the project risk register as well as the reviews of significant project change requests.  While the project team is likely to identify and assess project risks, the sponsor can provide valuable feedback on business risks.

While these may not be as effective as magic eyeglasses, the  one-two punch of process and project team tactics could help to make an invisible project sponsor materialize.

 

 

 

 

Don’t get blindsided by stakeholder influence

I’ve written a few articles on the risk posed by resource availability to most knowledge-based projects, and I still feel that this is a frequent cause of schedule & budget overruns.  Other common risk factors impacting projects include requirements clarity, technology uncertainties and organization change resistance.  Finally, project priority is a major source of risk these days – the “star” project that receives funding and focus today could morph into the “dog” tomorrow that is starved of resources.

A more subtle risk factor, and yet one that can be equally pernicious has to do with that unique project role – the stakeholder.  The Guide to the PMBOK (Fourth Edition) defines a stakeholder as “Person or organization (e.g. customer, sponsor, performing organization, or the public) that is actively involved in the project, or whose interest may be positively or negatively affected by execution or completion of the project.  A stakeholder may also exert influence over the project and its deliverables.”  It is the second sentence in this definition that aligns well with an alternate definition I was once given: “Anyone with the ability to negatively impact your project”.

One tends to think of negative stakeholder influence as a common source of risk to construction or other highly visible external projects, but any moderately complex internal project could also possess multiple stakeholders with competing agendas.

To address this source of risk, the best response is thorough and regular stakeholder analysis.  If you are not sure that you have identified all of your stakeholders, seek advice from a peer or mentor.  Meet individually with your stakeholder representatives early on and reinforce these relationships throughout the lifecycle of your project.  It may be naive to assume that you can satisfy the needs of all of your stakeholders, so your objective should be to manage the impacts of their influence on your project.  If it is not possible to work towards a “win, win” situation, you may need to solicit assistance from your project sponsorship or other stakeholders.

Project teams working on high stress, aggressive time line (is there any other kind?) projects tend to focus on their customer or  their project steering committees.  This myopia can be fatal – stakeholder influence is perhaps the best example of Dr. Hillson’s definition for risk: “Uncertainty that matters”.

 

“Estate planning” for your project

I tried hard to come up with a positive title for this article! With the more positive scenario of “winning” the lottery you would hopefully transition your project properly before riding off in the sunset!  However, in the case of your being “out of commission” for a temporary (or permanent) time frame, if limited information is available to your team or to a replacement project manager how successful are they likely to be?  Morbid though it might seem, we can draw a parallel to estate planning – without a will that clearly states how one’s property is to be allocated and what one’s desired funeral arrangements are, you are at the mercy of the specific laws of your region.

For those of you that are affiliated with PMI, the code of ethics has a topical clause: “We fulfill the commitments that we undertake – we do what we say we will do.”  We need to spend some effort keeping the information on our projects up-to-date so that unplanned transitions can be accommodated with minimal business impact.

This should not be an issue in organizations that have established, consistent methodologies.  But in those places that have no such standards, what is the bare minimum that you should strive to maintain?

1. A project charter – while most large projects are likely to have a signed off charter or equivalent document, if there have been drastic changes in the vision or authority granted by this document, it is important to bring it up-to-date.

2. A current stakeholder analysis document – most PMs can figure out who their main customer and team members are, but its the stakeholders they are not keeping an eye on that can cause them the most trouble.

3. The most current approved baselines for scope, schedule, cost & quality – you can only manage what you measure, and if you have no baseline against which to track progress, performance is in the eye of the beholder.

4. An up-to-date project organization structure & contact list – I’m assuming you would not want a replacement PM digging through your e-mail archives to locate the telephone number of a key vendor?

5. Project status reports from the past six reporting periods

6. Updated issue, risk & action logs – these should include a clear description of business impacts, ownership, expected resolution or response dates, and action/response plans

7. Copies of all signed contracts, purchase orders & invoices related to the project

Now you might say that all of these items exist for your project, but how easy is it for someone to locate them?  Is there a single master source for these or are there multiple versions?  And (more important), are they up-to-date, or a few weeks (or months) stale?

If your executor has no idea where your will is or if it is current, your estate may suffer.  The same might be true for your project, missing a current, easy to locate project control book – ashes to ashes, dust to dust.