Project sponsorship - a neglected skill, or a failing role?
Projects don’t ‘fail’ because they breach their constraints; they ‘fail’ because they don’t achieve the benefits or outcomes their business case suggested. Blaming the project manager for this is not uncommon, but is it fair? If achievement of the business case is the real definition of success, then the person taking ownership of that must hold accountability, if not responsibility, for the delivery of the benefits. That person or, more properly, that role, is that of the sponsor.
Typically, the rewards (aka benefits), suggested in most business cases, dwarf the costs. For this reason, we shouldn’t judge success as staying, tightly, within estimated cost parameters but the extent to which the benefits (that justified whatever cost) are realised. If so, then often the sponsor is at least equally, if not more, accountable for project failures as the project manager.
But, in the same way, is it fair to place blame at the door of a role that is poorly understood, and badly practiced, in many organisations? Project sponsorship is possibly the most neglected role in the organisational change arena and yet one of the most pivotal. Do you recognise any of these characters amongst your sponsor communities?
Untrained sponsors – we are discussing project sponsorship like a management discipline. But for the professions listed above there is specific and focused training (for example, the chief financial officer will likely have some formal accounting qualification or training) but very few people have been formally trained to the sponsor role – after all it’s not as though it’s perceived as a ‘day job’. Is it reasonable to expect an untrained and very busy individual to discharge a role they’ve never been formally developed to discharge with appropriate focus and discipline?
Absent sponsors – these are identifiable by their absence. So low is their understanding of what the importance and function of a sponsor is, and how they should behave, that they simply do not prioritise the sponsors duties amongst their commitments. Consequently, they fail to schedule or attend project boards, investment panels, gateway reviews, or any of the other duties of the sponsor. These are typically identifiable by the presence of a deputy, frequently too junior to authorise the necessary decisions, representing them. In the worst cases the project manager is just expected to ‘get on with it’.
Meddling sponsors – these characters take the role seriously and commit to it, but have misinterpreted the role, believing their function is to act as a manager/supervisor of the project manager. You can often tell a meddling sponsor because they tend to focus, first and foremost, on the cost variance, schedule performance, and cost risk management aspects of the project’s performance. The job, from their perspective, is to bite the project manager should they get anything wrong!
An erroneous assumption
In all these cases the problem is, seldom, one of ability – after all, these people have got to where they are by being able and capable managers or executives. The problem is that their ability lies in areas other than project sponsorship. To assume that these abilities are transferable to the role of sponsor is a common but erroneous assumption. So, as project and change professionals and practitioners, what should we do about these different characters and behaviours?
Final Thought
In most instances it is a case of upward management, through ‘holding up the mirror’ of good practice to them by pointing out that there are three fundamental elements of the business case that they are promoting; benefits, costs and risks. Costs and risks are important, but ‘top trumps’ will always be the benefits. Benefits, unlike costs and risks, are not important – they are critical. And they are, specifically, what the role of sponsor is on the hook for. So, at heart, the answer is to get them to understand the significance of the business case and their accountability for the delivery of the benefits that the investment is justified against. Once they appreciate this, the behaviour needs to become one of a primary focus on the benefits and outcomes. If that message has convincingly landed, the rest will surely follow.
Coming soon…An executive’s perspective…
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