by Skon Lapamnuaypol, PMP
Managing projects without support from sponsors is something that project managers wish to avoid. This can happen due to sponsor’s interest changing or changes within company’s strategy. The effect on the ongoing project can be severe and cause the project to come to a halt. If it happens to your project, then what are your options?
Prevention
During the project initiation phase, project manager must include the purpose of the project and the business justification of why the project is created. If the project is a mega project, sponsors and supporters of the project can come from various silos and departments. Each sponsor can have different interests. Conflict of interest among sponsors can surely occur and the project manager is the person who has to list all these conflicts and present them to all sponsors. These conflicts must be discussed among all sponsors. The importance for each conflict should be listed for further discussion. A “risk register” should be used during this process along with “response” from parties involved. Make a list of authorities who have full authorization to approve funding for the project. This way there is a “go to” person if and when the project stalls due to resource or personnel problems.
PMBOK & PRINCE2 Points of View
Both PMBOK and PRINCE2 have similar goals in that they both wish to promote and standardize project management practices. Understanding both principles can help us apply and strategically use the best of each project management body of knowledge. In the PMBOK, the loss of the project sponsor and/or business case relationship are not discussed in great detail. In PRINCE2, there is a quote that goes as follows:
“The business justification is the reason for the project. Without it, no project should start. If business justification is valid at the start of a project, but disappears once it is under way, the project should be stopped or changed.”
The quote above clearly states that the business justification is the reason we create the project. If the business justification disappears or is no longer there, the project should cease to continue, or change. But, the situation is not that we have lost our business justification, is that we simply have no way of knowing if the business justification still exists without feedback from sponsors. How does a project manager know if they should continue without sponsorship after the project is already under way?
Use Your Documentation to Fill in Gaps
Once the project starts, a project manager must verify the purpose of the project and continue to verify throughout the project life cycle. If there is a priority change, the issue must be brought to project sponsors, if any exist. Earlier project sponsor analysis must be used in order to determine whether the project should continue or come to a halt. Ideally, the project manager should be the person who analyzes the entire project situation and comes to a conclusion if the project should continue or not.
Conclusion
It seems that there is no real specific solution to losing all sponsors except that a project manager should take steps to prevent the loss of all sponsors from happening. Each situation is different. The lack of sponsor support will be recorded in the project’s post mortem documents. With that, the company may learn to better manage sponsor support on projects that are aligned with the organizations priorities. And, always try to get a signed project charter!
Skon Lapamnuaypol is a PMP certified project manager with a Bachelor degree in Computer Science from Chiang Mai University. He has proven 20 years experiences in IT industry, which includes 14 years’ experience managing IT Implementation Projects in Banking, Manufacturing and Retail Industries. On Technology area, Skon has strong knowledge and background on Software Engineering, Software Development and System Integration.