The Project Book

CHAPTER 55 SHARE THE BURDEN

The first thing I did as a project sponsor was appoint my steering committee (or project board). I usually did this before selecting my project manager as I wanted the team to have a say in the decision-making process. On more than one occasion we selected a person from one of their departments.

The steering committee is a crucial function that any project requires and is a key support mechanism for you as a sponsor. The authors of Directing Projects Using PRINCE2 go a step further to assert, ‘The project board is accountable for the success or failure of the project. Being accountable means accepting and demonstrating “ownership” of the project. The project executive is seen as the focus of accountability for the project and accordingly retains the ultimate decision-making authority’.

For its part, the PMI advises that ‘project governance should involve the least amount of authority structure possible’.

I agree with both of these points. The steering committee needs to ‘own’ the decisions made, and we need to ensure there are as few people as possible involved in that process. After all, there’s only so much leadership love you can share.

One project steering committee I was asked to sit on had 19 members. It was a relatively large transformation project, yet only six people represented what I would call the ‘core’ project steering committee. Everyone else was either presenting a paper or there as an ‘FYI’ (I think that means ‘I can’t be bothered ...