When Sponsors Abandon Your Project
February 16th, 2004 by HalInteresting little article in Computerworld today on what to do when your project sponsor walks away from your project Surviving the Sponsor Exit. Kathleen Melymuka describes an approach offered by Gopal Kapur of the Center for Project Management. She infers we can anticipate that sponsors will fail the team.
- Plan ahead (for a sponsor exit).
- Prepare to escalate.
- Use (the plan).
- Consider euthanasia (of the project).
- Use your resources.
- Resist newbies (sponsors).
- Require a "single throat."
- Step up.
- Make it official (change of sponsor).
- Re-form, restorm (kick-off again).
- Go for it.
I enjoyed the article. It was a quick read. I walked away with a few clever sayings. But it got me wondering why are we talking about project sponsors? What does that mean? The author says, "The project sponsor is the executive or manager with the fiscal authority, political clout and personal commitment to see a project through." In my experience that is not good enough. Who is the customer for the project? All project work has a customer and one or more performers. The team needs someone to say, "I'm satisfied" when the work is complete.
You can skip the above 11 actions if you don't do any project that doesn't have a customer. And if the customer walks away, then you know the project is over.
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February 21st, 2004 at 11:23 pm
The sponsor is an individual from the customer department because a single point of contact and point of decision making is necessary. If one is doing a project that does not have a customer, one is cooking a meal for which there is no one to consume it - a total waste.