Teachable Moments: The Project Sponsor

Greg Fabian, PMP has over 30 years experience working on IT projects as a project manager, PMO project management consultant and technical strategist with the federal government.

 

Teachable moments are formed when you have done something--regardless of the outcome--and learned from the experience. Learning makes us better at what we do and provides a great opportunity to develop others and sharpen skills. We’ve compiled our best Teachable Moments from our community members for you to learn from and share with other project managers.

As project managers, we know that our most important stakeholder is the project sponsor. Having an effective project sponsor can make all the difference in the world, especially if you are responsible for managing an enterprise-scale IT project.

Several years ago, I was responsible for managing the enterprise content management system for a government agency. The IT office managed the system, which supported the program offices and administrative functions of the agency. The project sponsor was a division manager in the IT office. Because he was a first-level executive, he didn’t have the “clout” to influence executives leading the other program offices. As a result, our project--which was a high priority for the IT office--wasn’t a priority for the program offices. It was very difficult to gain any traction in getting the project off the ground.

The project sponsor would have been more effective if the agency had created a project advisory board staffed by executives from the …

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