Introduction to Project Sponsorship

All over the world, there has been much focus on the training and development of project managers. The growth in qualifications in this area has been immense and is matched by the growth in capability for the majority of project managers. But the lack of maturity of the project sponsor role and the lack of understanding of its importance leave a gap in project management. Our intent is to correct this gap.

Project sponsorship can be many things to many people. Sponsors, especially, may see their role differently from the way project managers perceive it. Sponsorship includes many senses of the word sponsor without a common understanding of the roles and responsibilities to sponsor across project industries.

Professionals may be unclear on a definition of the term, but project management practice gives us some idea of what a sponsor does, as distinct from a project manager, and why it is so important to the success of a project and to an organization’s goals.

WHAT IS PROJECT SPONSORSHIP?

The Oxford English Dictionary offers many definitions for the word sponsor. Used as a noun, it can mean any of the following:

• A person or organization that pays for or contributes to the costs involved in staging a sporting or artistic event in return for advertising: the production cost $80,000, most coming from local sponsors.

• A person who pledges to donate a certain amount of money to another person after participating in a fundraising event organized on behalf of a charity.

• A person who introduces and supports a proposal for legislation: a leading sponsor of the bill.

• A person taking official responsibility for the actions of another: they act as sponsors and contacts for new immigrants.

• A person presenting a candidate for confirmation or baptism: Lisa has asked me to be her sponsor for confirmation next month.

The word can also be used as a verb, meaning

• To provide funds for (a project or activity or the person carrying it out): Joe is being sponsored by a government training program.

• To pay some or all of the costs involved in staging (a sporting or artistic event) in return for advertising: the event is sponsored by Qantas Airlines.

• To pledge to donate money on behalf of a participant in a fundraising event: Nigella wishes to thank all those people who sponsored her.

• To introduce and support a proposal in a legislative assembly: the senator sponsored the bill.

• To propose and organize negotiations or talks between other people or groups: the U.S. sponsored negotiations between the two sides.

Interestingly, even though the word sponsor has many meanings, there is no dictionary definition that in any way relates to project management and the topic of this book, project sponsorship. So given the lack of an authoritative definition of a project sponsor and the paucity of published writing about the role of project sponsorship, let’s take a look at how one of the major project management professional certification bodies defines it. According to the Project Management Institute’s (PMI’s) A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK® Guide):

A sponsor is the person or group who provides resources and support for the project and is accountable for enabling success. The sponsor may be external or internal to the project manager’s organization. From initial conception through project closure, the sponsor promotes the project. This includes serving as spokesperson to higher levels of management to gather support throughout the organization and promoting the benefits the project brings. The sponsor leads the project through the initiating processes until formally authorized, and plays a significant role in the development of the initial scope and charter. For issues that are beyond control of the project manager, the sponsor serves as an escalation path. The sponsor may also be involved in other important issues such as authorizing changes in scope, phase-end reviews, and go/no-go decisions when risks are particularly high. The sponsor also ensures a smooth transfer of the project’s deliverables into the business of the requesting organization after project closure.

Considering this definition and applying our own observations from experience, discussions, and surveys, we can surmise that a project sponsor is the person in an organization who will

• Realize the most benefit to business value from the project

• Actively seek or provide funding to support the project

• Set the parameters and expectations for project success

• Provide high-level monitoring of the project to ensure the expected value will be realized

• Promote the project to ensure visibility and increase the chance for success

• Actively be involved in risk identification, management, and mitigation

• Authorize significant project changes to extend or compress scope, schedule, budget, or quality.

In short, this high-level list shows that the project sponsor is the person in the organization who most cares about the project and its success. At least she should be.

Take a look at Figure I-1. Every project begins with an idea. The business case, based on that idea, explains the project and its expected benefits. The sponsor must believe in the project and in the anticipated benefits. She will bring the project to the portfolio committee or other authority within the organization responsible for providing funding. This committee provides funding to the sponsor, with the condition that the sponsor will provide the executive-level project oversight. Now the project can begin. The first steps include selecting a project manager and developing a project charter or other initiating document.

FIGURE I-1: Simplified Project Sponsorship Process

Figure I-1 illustrates just one common example of how projects come to be. There are as many different variations as there are organizations in the world. One common thread in most projects is that the sponsor is given funding with the expectation that she will have executive oversight and responsibility for the project.

THE SPONSOR’S ROLE

Project sponsorship is an active senior management role. A sponsor is responsible for identifying the business need, problem, or opportunity. Once this has been done, the sponsor ensures the project remains a viable proposition and that the expected business benefits are realized. During project performance, the sponsor focuses on resolving any issues outside the control of the project manager and acting as the project’s champion.

The role of sponsor is a far-reaching one. It can’t be considered a full-time role—unlike the role of the project manager for a significant project—but it does require a depth of knowledge, experience in project activity, a power base of some influence, and an alert and decisive mind.

A project sponsor is not a sponsor for life—that is, she has other roles and responsibilities that don’t pertain to the project—but she is there for the duration of the project, from initiation to closure. Randy Englund and Alfonso Bucero write

A good sponsor performs different functions during the project life cycle, serving as mentor, catalyst, motivator, barrier buster, and boundary manager. The sponsor is the link between the project manager and senior managers. The project sponsor is the best “project seller.” The sponsor promotes and defends the project in front of all other stakeholders. Being a project sponsor is to be involved from project initiation to project end.

Just consider for a moment the complex skill set that the sponsor’s duties demand of one individual. It is no wonder that you probably will not get the “perfect” sponsor for your project, because individuals who can deliver everything that is expected of a sponsor are few and very far between. Furthermore, even people who have the right personal qualities may not be educated in or have experience with the best practices and the intricacies of project work.

Sponsors don’t just support projects; good project sponsors also support the project manager and project team. It is said that a project is one small step for a project sponsor and a giant leap for the project manager. Wouldn’t we all feel so much better if we knew that the project sponsor’s one small step would ensure that the complementary giant leap would lead to a safe and secure final landing?

In our experience, the skill profile of project managers continues to grow, which is a good thing, and more and more organizations are developing project managers in a disciplined and mature manner. We hope this means that accidental project managers—those who came to the role by chance and often totally unprepared—are becoming extinct. But it is also our experience that the same cannot be said of project sponsors. Far too many organizations wrongly believe that a project sponsor is just a figurehead who is never called to active duty, and so very few ever invest in any developmental support for their sponsors. Being a “good” project sponsor, like being a “good” project manager, requires structured experience, education, and guidance; but most of the time, sponsors are left with only what they have learned through happenstance throughout their careers.

This is clearly the wrong approach, and we are certain that it threatens the success of projects. According to a KPMG New Zealand project management survey released in 2010, one of the main reasons for project failure is weak sponsorship:

The project sponsor has a critical role to monitor and control the project at [the] strategic level, steering a project back on track if it runs into difficulties along the way.

One of the fundamental reasons why projects fail is the lack of executive sponsorship and management buy-in. 68 percent of companies do not always have an effective Sponsor to provide clear direction for the project or to escalate problems when necessary.

If “trying to manage a project without project management is like trying to play a football game without a game plan,” then “trying to deliver a project without project sponsorship is like playing football without a rule book, a coach, any funds for new players, or even a referee.”

To be a successful partner on a project, a sponsor needs to be connected to the project manager and to the project team. It is a real red flag if she is remote. If she is too busy to meet, to discuss the project, and to help, the red flag turns an even darker shade. If she avoids helping assign project roles and responsibilities, or never has time to approve documents, make decisions, or just be there to advise, there is a problem—one that is reaching critical status. Throw in a dash of blaming anyone but herself for any problems, and it is probably time for you to walk away from the project if you possibly can. The project manager, the project team, and the business are in real trouble—and so is the project.

Bad sponsors will exhibit some or perhaps, in the worst-case scenario, all of the preceding behaviors. Conversely, a good project sponsor does just the opposite. She will happily act as advisor to the project manager and will focus on removing obstacles in the path to project success.

A bad project sponsor may simply be an untrained or inexperienced sponsor, but even if her poor performance is less her fault than the organization’s for failing to invest in its sponsors, she still may be a project manager’s worst nightmare.

WHAT DO THE PROFESSIONALS SAY?

The term project sponsor was first used in the early 1990s by Wendy Briner, Michael Geddes, and Colin Hastings in their book Project Leadership. According to the authors, a project sponsor is the project manager’s boss.

They saw the sponsor as the “owner of the project, the person who pays for the work and controls the flow of money.” Others (Paul Dinsmore, H. Curry, and Ralph Kliem and Irwin Ludin) saw the sponsor primarily as providing resources.

We can tell from the relatively recent appearance of the term project sponsor in the literature that formalization of the role is relatively new. We also know that the sponsor is the project manager’s boss for this project, the owner of the project (in other words, the buck stops with her), and the person who controls the money and provides resources. Using this definition, the Spanish monarchy sponsored Christopher Columbus’ journey to find an ocean route to the East Indies. Although the concept has been around for a long time, formal use of the term project sponsor really started only in the 1990s.

We provided PMI’s definition of project sponsorship in the previous section. Now let’s take a look at what two other organizations say about sponsorship. The Association for Project Management (APM) is a registered charity in the United Kingdom that develops and promotes the professional disciplines of project management and program management. APM provides a wide range of professional qualifications for the project manager. According to APM, a sponsor is

… the individual or body for whom the project is undertaken and who is the primary risk taker. The sponsor owns the business case and is ultimately responsible for the project and for delivering the benefits….

Project sponsorship is an active senior management role, responsible for identifying the business need, problem, or opportunity. The sponsor ensures the project remains a viable proposition and that benefits are realized, resolving any issues outside the control of the project manager.

PRINCE2 is a qualification that gives a person either Foundation or Practitioner status. In conversation with one of the authors, one of Britain’s leading PRINCE2 trainers, Harminder Ahluwalia, said: “In PRINCE2, the role of the sponsor is not defined but is alluded to. The sponsor in PRINCE2 is seen as the driving force behind the project or program. The sponsor is the executive on a project board or the person appointed by the business to take ultimate responsibility for delivery of that project.”

So we have three professional bodies with differing views:

• PMI’s definition details the expectations for the sponsor role.

• APM gives us a statement of intent.

• PRINCE2 only briefly mentions the role of the project sponsor.

WHO DOES WHAT AND WHEN?

Table I-1 outlines the project manager’s and sponsor’s typical roles throughout the project. This will function as a guide to begin a more detailed definition of sponsor. You will need to adapt the listed duties to mesh with your own companywide project management approach for specific projects. We will present a checklist that details the project sponsor’s responsibilities in Chapter 2.

TABLE I-1: The Duties of Project Managers and Sponsors

A project is one small step for the project sponsor, one giant leap for the project manager.