As organizations continue to struggle with delivering success in their initiatives, the search for answers continues. Alongside continuous attempts to improve performance through efficiencies, innovations in project management, organizational change, and agile – a potent problem which is less visible, persists: challenges around project (and change) sponsorship. While most (almost 90% of) sponsors believe they do an excellent job sponsoring; a staggering opposite ratio of project managers believe that their sponsors do not provide the right level of support for their initiatives. This workshop helps narrow down that gap in perceptions and in reality.
This unique and fast paced course provides participants with a series of tools, concepts and ideas on how to become more effective sponsors. Participants learn what to ask, what to look for, and what to measure as sponsors; so they can set expectations and provides the right (and sufficient) level of support for their PMs, counterparts and organization as a whole.
WHO SHOULD ATTEND:
- Project managers
- Project sponsors
- Change managers
PARTICIPANTS WILL LEARN:
- Articulate the role of a project sponsor and the key success factors for effective sponsorship
- Apply techniques to set expectations and engage stakeholders
- Determine the sponsorship approach and style based on the type of initiative, context, and conditions, including sponsorship in agile environments
- Learn to deal with multiple layers around initiatives (i.e. dealing with PMs and Scrum Master in the same projects; differentiating between project sponsorship and the role of the Product Owner)
- Foster a healthy working environment for project and organizational success
- Deal with the challenges as part of the matrix organization
- Make “tough” decisions (on a timely manner) about if / when / what / how to act – to allow a project to proceed past key milestones and events
COURSE OUTLINE
The importance of, and the need for improving project sponsorship
- A painless review of portfolio management and governance concepts
- An examination of common challenges with organizational structure, sponsorship, and governance
- The role of the project sponsor in facilitating organizational success
“Managing up”: the interaction between the sponsor and the PM, and building collaboration between PMs and sponsors
- Set, clarify and align expectations
- Escalations, exceptions, expedites, processes, and rules
- Define boundaries: where the project manager ends, and the sponsor begins
Meaningful leadership concepts
- Managing challenging conversations
- Dealing with “difficult” stakeholders
Project Sponsor, Agile Product Owner and everything in between
- Balancing goals, pressures, and realities
- Prioritization across projects
- Define project success criteria
- Get sufficiently involved in the projects
- Managing the most challenging factor: resource management
How to sponsor a project
- Checklists (business case, starting a project, role definition, project reporting, project controls, project benefits, SMEs availability, project health, project support, project plan, phase review, project closure)
- Activities to perform as a sponsor
- Overseeing estimating
- Communication best practices (norms, meetings, collaboration)
- What to look for, what to focus on, what to measure, what to ask
- Health checks
- Business case
- Signs of trouble
Recap and action items
METHODOLOGY
This fast-paced session is designed for executives. It provides clear, tangible, useful and innovative concepts, tools and measures to help sponsors and project managers improve project sponsorship, and hence, organizational goals.