I’ll preface this post by apologizing to Jeff Foxworthy – I’m sure he never planned for his You Might Be A Redneck humor to be plagiarized for use in the Project Portfolio Management domain, but my defense is that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery!
A common source of PPM initiative failures is the lack of effective executive sponsorship. As such, I thought it might be instructive (and fun!) to provide a few telltale indicators to help in avoiding picking the wrong sponsor for your PPM capability improvement project.
Your candidate might be a bad PPM initiative sponsor if
1. He once tried to sue Nike for use of HIS phrase “Just do it”!
2. She breaks her piggy bank and starts counting the change when you ask whether she can secure sufficient funding for the initiative.
3. Hysterical laughter is the only reaction you receive when you tell your colleagues who you are trying to recruit.
4. The last major initiative he sponsored was written up by Harvard Business School as an MBA case study on how NOT to sponsor a project.
5. Her common reaction when faced with change resistance is to say “Twist my rubber arm”.
6. Apprentice ninjas have approached him for training in the art of invisibility.
7. She is listed in the Guinness Book of World Records for the greatest number of executive jobs held in different companies in the shortest period of time.
8. His initial response when you asked him to sponsor your initiative is to say “You said the P word!”.
9. Chicken Little is her idol.
10. When you ask him to be your sponsor, he gives you the number of the local AA chapter.
Easy in theory, difficult in practice 