You can be successful by ensuring your project is successful. But your project can’t be successful without the Sponsor’s informed, involved, active sponsorship

You need to own your project to ensure its success. But Project Sponsorship is not well understood. Few executives have ever been trained. Every major IT catastrophe in the past 25 years has had a Sponsor - who didn’t know what they were doing!

You need to know what you’re doing and how to effectively ‘own’ and sponsor your project.

You can, through your effective Sponsorship of your project, directly increase the actual value realized by your project by 10% or more - and we tell you how to increase your project’s value.

In repeated studies, it is found that only 5% of projects are truly successful in all dimensions - outcomes, benefits, time and budget. And, to get you there, we provide you with the skills and knowledge required to be in the top 5%.

We explain why Project Sponsorship is different to line and operational management.

The dynamics are different, the challenges are different, the parameters on which to make decisions are different. And so on.

For example, at a Steering Committee meeting the project team reported 67 outstanding issues. The Sponsor commanded that there be less than 10 by the next meeting! This was a worthless response. The Sponsor should have asked, for example,

1. Why are there 67 outstanding issues?
2. How many are critical?
3. How long will it take to resolve them?
4. What impact will this have on the project’s progress?
5. What if we don’t act now? And so on.

You’ve got to know what questions to ask. Being a project sponsor is a necessary executive competency.

Benefits

Our collection of Project Sponsor and Governance Guides allows you to

1. take control of your project effectively and securely
2. know what questions to ask at each stage of the project
3. manage your project manager and steering committee to maximum effect
4. know what to do when things go wrong (and how to prevent them going wrong)
5. know what you’re accountable for (and what others are accountable for)
6. effectively ‘govern’ through to the end of the project and beyond — until the value has been realized
7. build a personal competency that is becoming essential for effective, world-class executives.

Guides

The following Guides can be bought individually or as a set. They are in an indicative order of acquisition if bought individually.

Understanding Project Governance
Although project governance has existed for more than 25 years it is still not well understood. This Guide takes you through the top 24 dimensions of governance explaining their importance and what happens when they’re not performed well.
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Understanding Business Project Leadership (sponsor primer)
The business often does not get adequately involved in projects because they don’t quite know what to do. This Guide explains the roles of the business on the project and why they’re important. An excellent primer for (would-be) project sponsors.
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How to be a successful Project Sponsor
When appointed to be a Project Sponsor most executives are really at a lost as to what their roles, accountabilities and critical success factors are. This Guide takes executives through the key dimensions of the Project Sponsor role
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How to manage your project steering committee member
A project sponsor guide as to how to select, set up and manage a successful, supportive and contributing steering committee, and how to know if it is not performing.
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How to manage your project manager
The Governance Team is largely dependent on the performance of the project manager to get the best results from the project. This Guide takes you through the processes of selection, induction and management as well as performance measurement to ensure you get the most from your project manager.
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How to govern project setup
If your project is set up wrong it is destined to fail. Therefore, project set up is a critical stage of the project that needs to be actively governed. Project set up includes any feasibility study and all of the way up to the full business case
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How to govern project planning
Project planning involves getting the right resources onto the project and generating realistic estimates. You need to know how, how long, how much and who will deliver the project. These are all key governance accountabilities covered in this Guide.
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How to govern project delivery
During project delivery a whole range of issues, risks, inter-dependent projects and other matters can arise that need business governance. Project delivery needs to ensure the final results meet the defined business needs and expectations.
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How to govern project closure and beyond
The Governance Team’s accountability for delivery of the project and the associated benefits continues beyond the end of the project. So, both the project’s delivery and the subsequent delivery of benefits need to be actively governed to ensure the full business value is realized.
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How to manage the leading indicators of failure
Events and non-events on your project can gradually destroy its value and likelihood of success without ever appearing in the project reporting. These are the leading indicators of failure that this Guide identifies and recommends preventive action to avoid your project failing without you knowing.
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How to manage your critical success factors
Critical Success Factors (CSFs) are here defined as those factors that need to exist or go right for your project to succeed that are outside the control of your project team. These CSFs have to managed by the Governance team. But first they need to be identified and then managed to ensure the success of your project. The Guide facilitates the identification and ongoing management of CSFs. An essential tool for governance teams to enable them to effectively contribute to their projects.
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How to control your systems costs
During the development of your project a number of decisions will be made that will determine the system’s development and long-term operational costs. This Guide puts you in control of 12 of these major cost drivers and explains in business terms the implications of your decisions so you make business decisions that can control your long-term systems costs.
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How to define your project policies
When there is confusion as to what the rules are in relation to projects, who can do what and how, value disappears through the gaps. This Guide provides a basic set of recommended project-related policies that can be amended and adapted for your organization. It gives you a quick head start.
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The Complete Project Sponsor Set
All of the Guides relevant to and of critical use to a Project Sponsor. Includes

   1. Understanding project governance
   2. Understanding business project leadership
   3. How to be a successful Project Sponsor
   4. How to govern project set up
   5. How to govern project planning
   6. How to govern project delivery
   7. How to govern project closure and beyond
   8. How to manage your project manager
   9. How to manage your project steering committee
  10. How to control your system’s costs
  11. Why IT is different

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