Project Managers Dig Deeper

Project managers perform the smell test on key measures of success and do not always accept the immediate answer without appropriate validation. Ultimately, the steering team is placing their trust in the project manager to execute on the plan, but also to understand the full business context and respond accordingly. Project managers that hone these skills are ideal candidates for future leadership roles. Keep on sniffing! ...

... "To gauge sponsorship accurately, you must gather perceptions across the project. After all, someone reporting directly to the CIO may have quite a different view than one working 1000 miles away ... " ...

Via ZDNet: IT project success factors

Business Intelligence Projects: Pick Sponsor Wisely

Business intelligence projects are popular and fairly straightforward to get approved at governance. However, survey data shows that being selective about sponsorship is critical to BI success. Choose your sponsor and steering team wisely, should you receive the nod for investment. ...

... "What raised the red flag for Burton, however, was that 40% of those polled said their business intelligence projects were owned by lower-level business executives. That isn't ideal, Burton said, because that group tends to have tactical rather than strategic roles ... " ...

Business intelligence projects fail without C-level ownership

Executive Support

Continuing the series of posts on Critical Success Factors, we get to Executive Support. This topic is easy to understand. It's also easy for people charged with establishing a PMO to blame lack of executive support for problems they encounter. The fact is that the kind of executive you would want as a sponsor is high enough in the organisation that they will be too busy to give detailed support. So it is essential to have a common description of the relative roles of the change management team and the executive sponsor.

Some commonly quoted expectations for executive support are:
- Visible enthusiasm within the organisation for Project Management philosophy
- Advocacy between organisational groups
- Creation of, or active support for, a vision for the organisation with engrained project management processes
- Removal of barriers to change
- Assurance of funding for the implementation and continued operation of the PMO
- Enthusiasm for the use of project management information and involvement in the processes

It's important that the support should be actionable at a working level. For instance, providing some high level design principles but not insisting on detailed design approval. Or, issuing a public announcement which would then be followed up by detailed posts about specific topics from the team.

This paper describes a sponsor's role in developing project management maturity.
The Executive Sponsor - the Hinge upon which Organisational Project Management Maturity Turns?