Critical Success Factors - Executive Support

A common approach to projects involving information technology before the 1990s was for the MIS department (as it was then) to lead and sponsor the project. This applied even when there were significant business process changes involved. That worked well enough when the technical components were the most significant aspects of new systems and formal O&M methods could be applied.
Now the design issues are less to do with technology than with business responsiveness, speed of implementation and compliance. Business leadership becomes increasingly important. The responses have been for IT leadership to take on the character of business leaders - and for business leaders to become expert at change management.
What this means for a project manager working on an IT project is that there must be business sposorship. Pure infrastructure projects may exist, although some organisations insist that even these have a business sponsor. The following article shows the danger of focusing on the technology at the expense of the business requirements. The message is - the business representing the beneficiaries of the project must have 'skin in the game'!
Why Projects Fail to Deliver - Business Reasons