Delivering successful projects is wrought with challenges. Complex stakeholder environments, changing requirements, and inadequate resourcing are challenges many projects face. While there are many key roles to ensure a project is successful, the role of the Project Sponsor is particularly important. An effective Sponsor has the ability to allocate resources and funding, can assess the fit of a project with organizational goals and strategy and serves as an active and visible champion for the initiative to all stakeholders.
Key Activities of Project Sponsors
1. Check resources
The first thing an effective Sponsor should do is to ensure that the project is adequately resourced with both people and funding. A project without the right resources or enough funding is doomed to fail.
2. Check that project goals align with organization strategy
To ensure that the project will deliver value to the organization, an effective Sponsor should also periodically check that the goals of the project align with the current organizational direction and strategy. Given their place in the organization, Sponsors have a unique and rare view into shifts in organizational strategy. If it’s clear that a project will not support the current organizational strategy, it should be carefully reviewed to determine whether is should continue or not.
3. Be a visible and active champion
And finally, an effective Sponsor plays an active and visible role as a champion for the project. Enthusiasm for and faith in the project among the team and stakeholders can wane as the project drags on. Many sponsors play an active role at the beginning of a project, but to be successful, a project requires active and visible sponsorship throughout a project, especially in the “messy middle” when the team and stakeholders feel the project will never end and begin to lose faith in it. An effective Sponsor advocates for the project on an ongoing basis, including once the project has been implemented to ensure that the change the project was designed to implement has been effectively realized, and the organization receives the desired benefits from the project.