Cultural Influences on Executive Sponsorship
This chapter sets the stage for a senior management discussion about organizational culture and how well the management team is positioned to support the role of executive sponsor.
The Influence of Culture
Effective project management and sponsorship together can provide a competitive edge by improving project execution—provided the organizations where these practices are implemented have a culture that supports and encourages the kinds of decision making and change that project management enables.
Contrary to a great deal of marketing hype over the last 20 years, project management is NOT a magical “silver bullet” that enables all efforts to finish on time and on budget with exceptional quality work products and happy customers. Project management is much more mundane; it is a set of practices that try to facilitate understanding of the work to be done, anticipate and address challenges and risks, monitor execution, and support timely decision making when problems and opportunities arise. To nurture and benefit from the information provided by project management, the organizational culture must be willing to receive and act upon that information promptly—whether or not the news is pleasant.
Is the Enterprise Ready for Project Management?
All organizations engage in projects of some kind. Any effort outside the routine of day-to-day operations to develop or revise a product or service or make some significant change to the work environment or customer experience is a project. Examples include new product development, procuring and furnishing a new facility, developing and launching a new marketing/advertising campaign, and significant upgrades to work processes or infrastructure.
Most organizations need to see the benefits of project management before they are willing to escalate their organizational commitment to the processes and discipline. Fertile ground for a project management improvement initiative is an organization that consciously engages in projects and recognizes and seeks opportunities for process improvement.
Culture can enhance or discourage the evolution of more effective project management processes, and must be honestly assessed to determine whether an organization is ready to support an initiative to improve executive sponsorship and how to prioritize the effort. Consider the following questions:
1. Has the organization had successful experiences using cross-functional teams?
2. Are roles and responsibilities on cross-functional teams generally clear and respected by team members and functional managers?
3. When something goes wrong, does the organization prioritize looking for lessons learned and making process changes to avoid repeating the mistake, or affixing blame and allocating consequences to individuals involved?
4. Does the management team generally trust and support one another?
5. Does the management team tend to treat one another with courtesy and respect even when they disagree?
6. Does the organization have established project management practices and standards in place? (More on this in Chapter 4)
7. Are projects generally defined, planned, and managed consistently with standardized project management practices?
8. Does the organization consciously allocate resources to tactical daily operations as well as more strategic long-term efforts, or are nonoperational projects pursued with whatever effort is left after daily operations have been addressed?
9. Do people assigned the role of project manager in the organization have formal training in project management or do they tend to learn on the job?
10. What proportion of the executive staff has received formal project management training?
11. How many of the executives have formally served in the role of project manager during their careers?
12. Does the organization have a strategic plan that is current and actively referred to when considering new initiatives and priorities?
13. Does the strategic plan include metrics to track progress toward accomplishing objectives?
14. Does the organization maintain a list of significant projects currently underway?
15. What metrics are actively tracked and reported at the executive level for strategic projects?
16. How are significant proposed changes to a project’s budget, schedule, or scope agreed upon and documented?
17. When significant projects complete, do they proceed through a formal close-out process? Does that include a final report to the executive team?
18. Does the organization provide time-tracking mechanisms to monitor individual hours performed on projects?
19. Does the organization provide accounting methods to allocate costs to specific projects?
20. Do executives believe project sponsorship is a major part of their job and that they have time to devote to it? How many hours of an executive’s time do they estimate are directly related to projects underway?
Few organizations have the organizational and project management maturity to answer all of these questions favorably, and a few unfavorable responses are merely indications of cultural barriers to be considered as part of the organizational change necessary to implement executive sponsorship. If, however, an organization is feudal, authoritarian, blaming, rejects standard practices, avoids strategic planning, has a haphazard approach to project definition and tracking, and the executive team is already overworked, there may be higher priority issues to pursue than trying to implement an executive sponsorship program.
Cultural Pitfalls
An anthropologist friend once described culture as “the unspoken and unwritten rules about how a group behaves and interacts.” Her definition is sufficient for our purposes. Although culture is a multi-faceted concept, there are a few key cultural attributes that correlate with project management effectiveness in our experience.
After exploring the 20 questions above to better understand how culture influences project management effectiveness, utilize Table 3.1 as a first step for assessing a culture’s general support of project management. Subsequent chapters will provide additional assessment input on cultural readiness by delving more deeply into standards, roles and responsibilities, adequate training support, and a process for selecting the right executives for the role.
Table 3.1 Cultural attributes that correlate with project management worksheet
A given organization will find its typical cultural behavior for a given attribute on a continuum of maturity somewhere between the extremes. If many of the attributes are in the unfavorable zone, it suggests significant cultural barriers to an effective sponsorship program. We explore our rationale for each attribute’s impact on project management effectiveness below.
1. Blaming
Perhaps the biggest barrier to effective project management is what is called a “blaming culture.”2 In a blaming culture all significant errors are quickly allocated to one or more individuals who are then punished for their transgressions. The first question asked in a blaming culture is “Who?” not “Why?”
Blaming culture runs contrary to the project management goals of transparency and accountability. When a project is not going well or when a significant risk is realized, effective project managers should quickly analyze the situation, promptly notify the project sponsor, and execute appropriate risk response. If the project manager fears for his or her job whenever there is a problem (and there WILL be problems), this will discourage the timely and accurate flow of information essential for effective executive decision making. One of our client executives underscored the importance of timely and accurate delivery of bad news with a pithy sign on the wall over his desk. It read, “Around here we don’t shoot the messenger . . . Unless he’s late.”
2. Business orientation
Effective sponsorship and project management depend upon a project initiation process that identifies the project’s business value. Project teams that understand the value propositions of their projects are better prepared to identify and assess threats to that value, opportunities to improve value, and trade-offs that should be considered or avoided.
When business objectives are unclear or business value is not shared with the team, we have observed individual team members tending to exhibit two types of behavior: (1) Focus on the tactical—ignore the value proposition and do what they are told, to the best of their ability without a business context; or (2) make assumptions—guess at the business context and use the resulting assumptions to drive decision making and recommendations. Neither of these behaviors are ideal. Both result in increased likelihood of errors and diminished involvement of the team.
3. Embrace of process
While the process improvement pendulum often swings between embracing rigor and avoiding it,3 there is a place in every organization for some standardization of processes where it makes business sense.4 While some organizations in our experience appropriately debate the specific costs and benefits associated with a proposed new or changed process, others seem more inclined to a knee-jerk reaction that rejects process as unnecessary or restrictive.
Activities that are complicated, repetitive, and high risk/high value often benefit from process standardization as a way to improve consistency of performance and incorporate lessons learned. The aviation industry provides an excellent example of this principle.5 Modern airline pilots do not improvise the processes they use to prepare for takeoff and landing of commercial passenger jets, because missing a step can mean disaster. The motor vehicle industry provides another illustration through standardized placement of controls in an automobile cockpit, allowing a driver to casually move from one vehicle to another without specialized training.
Process standardization can also result in productivity gains. Standardization of project status reporting, for example, allows project sponsors to quickly change contexts from one project to the next without having to reorient to each individual project manager’s reporting style.
4. Collaboration—Do cross-functional teams play nicely together?
Some cultures are more collaborative than others. Complex projects that cross organizational boundaries, such as new product development, which might require assistance from engineering, manufacturing, contracting, sales, marketing, and support organizations, can be challenging under the best of circumstances. In organizations where communication and co-operation across organizational boundaries is limited, implementing a complex project is nearly impossible. Improving collaboration across organizational boundaries requires executive leadership and support and is a prerequisite to effective management of cross-disciplinary projects.
5. Response to risk—Is discussion of risk encouraged?
Many organizations launch projects with the unreasonable assumption they cannot fail to achieve defined goals. Even when projects are well defined in terms of schedule, scope, and resource goals, it may not be apparent to sponsors and key stakeholders that there are threats and barriers to achieving these goals. Unfortunately, it is difficult for many people to talk or think about possible threats to success without fearing that they will be perceived as “being negative.” As a consequence, acknowledging risk and potential for failure becomes a blind spot in many organizations. Because an organization is unable to see or discuss potential problems, there may be little or no interest in risk management. The irony is that discussing and planning for risk can raise awareness and potentially protect projects from unknown threats.
As an illustration, instructors in military paratrooper school focus primarily on things that could go wrong during a parachute jump. They communicate expected risks: trees, power lines, rivers, and parachute failure, and have troops drill appropriate responses to these risks while still on the ground. Since they have discussed it, imagined it, and drilled for it, paratroopers are better prepared to react if something goes wrong when they are falling from the sky. Waiting for a parachute to fail before considering an effective response is a fatal approach to parachuting. Waiting for a critical project component to fail before considering an effective response is a fatal approach to projects. While it is easy to see the importance of risk planning before you jump out of an airplane, many organizations stubbornly deny the possibility that a project might not go as imagined.
Organizational taboos against failure (“Failure is NOT an option!”) can present an even bigger barrier. In organizations with a taboo against failure, communicating information that may even hint at the possibility of failure is consciously or unconsciously discouraged. Honoring this taboo leaves project teams unprepared for risks and creates an environment in which problems are not communicated when they surface, but instead are ignored. Delayed communication about problems decreases the likelihood they can be dealt with effectively before they seriously damage the project.
If an organization has cultural taboos against discussing risks or admitting that projects might fail, it will be challenging to implement effective project and risk management processes and protocols. If risks cannot be surfaced, discussed, or planned for, why waste time with risk management? This attitude undermines the practice of proactively guarding against potential project threats.
6. Flexibility and adaptability—Is the organization dynamic and evolving?
Much as some organizations may be resistant to new or changed processes, some organizations, particularly in established industries or the public sector, can become inflexible and resistant to change. While this disposition, unaddressed, can present a real threat to an organization’s survival, it paradoxically also makes most remedies—such as a shift toward project management culture—more difficult. To be clear, all organizations experience some resistance to changes in how they operate—but beyond a point, resistance to new technologies and ways of doing business can be both self-limiting and destructive. Healthy organizations constantly evaluate ways to better adapt to changes in their environment, markets, and industries. If an organization resists innovation and evolution of its core business processes, how can it apply lessons learned?
7. Theory X/Y—Does the organization value and seek the perspective of its people?
The prevalent management philosophy of the industrial revolution is often characterized by a somewhat rigid, hierarchical command and control structure referred to as McGregor’s Theory X.6 Under Theory X, workers are assumed to be unambitious, avoiding work and responsibility where possible, and motivated by pay or fear for their jobs. Theory X assumes that managers have most of the answers and that workers are best given clear direction and monitored closely.
McGregor’s Theory Y is a competing theory that takes a more humanistic view of the workforce, assuming that workers are intrinsically motivated and generally take pride in their work. Theory Y presumes that the workers are more intelligent and have more to contribute to the conversation.
Modern complex projects often require input from diverse interests. While senior management may have a more strategic perspective, often the individual team members will have invaluable domain-specific knowledge and experience with similar efforts that can help identify the best approach to certain situations as well as risks that might pose threats to success. Organizations whose culture discourages soliciting and valuing input from individual team members and domain experts will find that this cultural perspective inhibits effective project management and problem solving.
8. Executive transparency—Are the rationale for decision making shared with staff?
“Because I said so” is the justification of last resort when arguing with a three-year-old, yet we have observed executives in some organizations who felt their authority was being challenged when asked about their motivation for project decisions. An organizational culture that does not share the thought process and justification for decisions and priorities creates three significant problems:
• Decisions seem arbitrary—which tends to undermine confidence in leadership, particularly if the decision seems to run contrary to common sense in the eyes of project team members.
• If the decision is based on bad information or incorrect assumptions the team has no opportunity to correct the executive misinformation before the decision is implemented.
• Even if the decision is right and proper, without understanding the thinking behind the decision, the project team is in no better position to anticipate the next decision.
Organizations whose culture sustains executive transparency wherever possible tend to be more nimble and also have staff who are better informed and better able to support executive decision making.
Each of these cultural attributes provides insights into whether an organization is ready for project sponsorship and helps to identify particular challenges that a program might need to address.
Ready for Project Sponsorship?
Executive sponsorship thrives when the organizational culture “allows” the sponsor to be effective. Sponsors are perceived to be effective when projects complete successfully and there are no complaints about their behavior. In preparation for planning a sponsorship initiative, here are some questions to consider:
• How can an organization determine whether it is enabling sponsors to be as effective as they could be?
• How would an organization know if it is ready to support executive sponsorship?
• How might problems be identified? For example, are sponsors getting the co-operation needed when it is needed? If not, why not?
• What are the causes of resistance and what can be done to make the environment more conducive to effective sponsorship?
Let us define organizational culture, in the sponsorship context, as “a shared set of beliefs that govern how people behave toward executive project sponsorship.” In practice, one would look for evidence that the executive sponsor is supported by the organization. While public statements of support are helpful, support is better demonstrated by senior management action, for example, “walking the talk.” Senior management encourages supportive behavior by engaging their teams and consistently indicating why the sponsor role is important, what the responsibilities and expected behaviors of sponsorship are, and how sponsors are held accountable for project success. It is not enough to say, “Sponsors are accountable.” Teams must understand that accountability means the sponsor answers to the organization for project outcomes. This is demonstrated when teams see rewards and consequences for project success and failures. It is reinforced when senior management acts collaboratively to find workable solutions when sponsors ask for assistance. When interacting with sponsors, effective senior management models the supportive behaviors that it expects from the rest of the organization.
Further evidence that a culture supports sponsorship includes senior management creating an atmosphere that encourages open dialogue about the role and the interactions that occur between sponsor and project team. Senior management can define and actively support the sponsor role and listen to and address issues team members raise to demonstrate their commitment. Discussing and refining the sponsorship role based on team feedback is an excellent method for diminishing resistance and encouraging buy-in. As an example, we have heard comments like “We don’t need sponsors because we have a project manager capable of managing that project”. Clarifying how the roles are different and the expectations of each helps socialize sponsorship and build buy-in for the role.
The Problem with Believing . . .
“We don’t need sponsors because we have a project manager capable of managing that project”
The roles of project manager and sponsor are fundamentally different. Project managers focus on tactical day-to-day aspects of the project. Sponsors worry about the project at a more strategic level and in the context of the entire organization. Project managers work with the team to identify potential risks and possible mitigation strategies, while the sponsor determines whether proposed mitigations are sufficient. Project managers seek to achieve the project goals as defined, and should not exceed agreed upon schedule, scope, or resource boundaries without sponsor consent. Sponsors establish the relative priorities among schedule, scope, and resources and serve as the voice of the organization if boundaries must be negotiated.
A key cultural indicator is how and to what degree an organization prepares sponsors for their role. Sponsors will be more effective if they possess the skills needed to perform the role and can demonstrate their competence. Sponsorship is a role ill-suited for a person who does not want the job, or who lacks knowledge about the organization’s standard project management practices and the sponsor’s role in them. A common belief we have encountered is, “Executives should just know how to be sponsors.” The rationale being that sometime during their careers they may have led projects or they would not be at an executive level. The problem with this line of reasoning is that executives may or may not have recent and relevant project management or sponsorship experience.
The Problem with Believing . . .
“Executives should just know how to be sponsors.”
There are many paths to the executive suite and some prepare new executives for sponsorship better than others. The ideal sponsor candidate will have had opportunities to serve in the project manager role on multiple cross-functional strategic projects working closely with, and being mentored by an effective executive sponsor. While this would constitute excellent preparation for serving in the role of executive sponsor, it is neither sufficient (there is more to learn) nor a prerequisite for the keys to the executive washroom. Many high-powered executives achieve their station because they are particularly good at finance, sales, or day-to-day operations. While their journey may have involved participating on project teams they may have little or no formal project management training or experience.
As we noted in Chapter 1, the project sponsor role has evolved rapidly over the past two decades. Sponsoring a project today brings new responsibilities and expectations not historically required of sponsors, such as active engagement throughout a project’s life cycle and project manager mentoring. Executives also may not have managed or sponsored projects of significant scope. This leads back to the question, “How does the organization support sponsors to prepare them for this role?” Development and implementation of sponsorship training and assessments, as well as instituting professional development requirements for executives that encourage their growth in the sponsorship role are key cultural indicators of executive sponsorship support.
A foundation for executive sponsor success includes formalized training for both sponsors and project team members. This training must consistently describe the sponsor role, responsibilities, and expected behaviors as well as the collaboration expected between the sponsor and the project manager and project team members.
Other cultural clues to organizational readiness include evidence that sponsors are being regularly assessed on their performance, and that sponsor’s professional development plans reflect adjustments indicated by their ability or inability to meet defined criteria for effective sponsorship (see Chapter 6 for an assessment process). It has been our experience that some executives are reluctant to participate in training and this is an organizational change challenge. The most common justification heard from executives who believe sponsor training is unnecessary is, “I already know what to do because I have managed numerous projects during my career”.
The Problem with Believing . . .
“I already know what to do because I have served as project manager on numerous projects during my career.”
Project managers are only positioned to see a fraction of a sponsor’s duties. While defined interactions with the project management process are apparent, the negotiation, diplomacy, advocacy, and horse trading that an executive sponsor performs to support a project often do not occur within the view of the project manager. While a good sponsor might share highlights of these activities with a project manager he or she was mentoring, the shift in perspective from a project manager caring about the project to a sponsor caring about the project in the context of the organization’s current mission and goals and future capacity can be jarring and surprisingly complex. Think of the project manager as a ship’s captain—worried about day-to-day operation of the vessel, protection and timely delivery of cargo, and the safety of the crew. Contrast that with the concerns of a commander of a fleet of vessels—worried about all of the ships, but also needing to make and manage trade-offs among different ships to maximize short- and long-term profitability and long-term growth of the enterprise. Prior service as a project manager does not expose the new executive sponsor to all aspects of the sponsor role. This is part of our rationale for suggesting training be mandatory.
An effective training program establishes a common language and framework for all project participants regarding roles, responsibilities, and expectations. Full participation assures that everyone gets a consistent message and is essential for project success. Why do experienced executives and senior managers need to attend project management training?
Implementing or enhancing a project sponsorship improvement program is a significant organizational change undertaking. To the extent that the roles and behaviors of an executive sponsor are new or inconsistent with prior cultural norms, project team members will be understandably skeptical and they will closely monitor sponsor interactions for reinforcing or discouraging signals regarding the sincerity of the message. As an example, during project management training we seek to deliver a consistent message to team members and project managers that if they are unsure about what course of action to take when presented with a significant challenge, they should perform preliminary analysis and seek sponsor guidance promptly if confusion remains. People often perceive this approach as professionally risky behavior, because it admits to the sponsor that they are unsure how to proceed. In training, we assure teams that if they are unsure how to proceed, the sponsor wants to be apprised of the situation and may be able to bring additional forces or insights to bear on the situation. We encourage training participants to experiment with this behavior.
Is Sponsor Behavior Reinforcing or Undermining the Message?
Imagine that you are a project manager who has just attended training that emphasized prompt communication of problems to the sponsor. An issue has come up that has you and the team stumped. You see no viable responses that do not adversely impact either schedule or budget. The cultural status quo before the sponsorship program rollout would be for you to pick and implement the best option, then deal with consequences later when budget or schedule problems materialized. Mindful of the message of including the sponsor in such decisions, you tentatively approach the sponsor lay out the issue, and the sponsor says:
A. “Get out of my office! Don’t come to me with a problem unless you have a solution.”
B. “Thanks for bringing this to my attention. What have you thought of so far? What would you recommend? I am inclined to go in this direction . . . for this reason . . . does that make sense? Am I missing anything?”
Which of these responses reinforces the notion that cultural change is afoot? Which response suggests that nothing has really changed? An untrained sponsor can undermine the organizational change effort necessary for an effective sponsorship program in one or two episodes.
Establishing a culture that embraces and supports sponsorship is a challenging undertaking. Executive statements of intent to improve sponsorship are necessary, but insufficient on their own. Teams and executives will look for tangible evidence that cultural change is at hand and look for consistent behavior from their leaders. Leaders must actively lead by example to reinforce the cultural changes required for successful implementation.
Avoidable Sponsorship Deployment Pitfalls
Anticipate resistance when implementing an executive sponsorship program. We have seen resistance to the role play out in various forms and originate from different parts of the organization. It may come from executives themselves who find the role too demanding, line management that is not used to taking direction in a matrixed structure, or project teams that see the role as superfluous or confusing. Senior management can help address these three areas by setting the right tone and providing direction to subordinates, but when the executives themselves resist, it can be particularly challenging. Six common pitfalls to look for and avoid are listed below and explored further in the text that follows:
• Lack of buy-in
• Refusal to be trained
• Deficient competency or skills
• Poor performance not addressed
• Insufficient bandwidth
• Unsustained interest/focus
Senior management buy-in to sponsorship’s value to the organization is critical. If one or more members of the senior management team do not value the role, there will be issues. This may express itself directly in lack of co-operation when a sponsor needs something from that executive or more subtly in the actions of the people who report to the unsupportive executive when they are assigned to a project team. It is essential to ensure buy-in rather than lip service from all executives before launching a sponsorship program. If the later behavior suggests buy-in issues are emerging, they must be addressed promptly. What follows is an example of what occurs when senior management has not fully bought in to the importance of the role.
The sponsor asks the functional executive who owns key members of a new product development project to use a standard reporting mechanism for their part of the project and to attend biweekly core team meetings. The functional executive refuses as he says the status reporting is not necessary because if someone needs to know how his team is progressing on their assignments they can ask him. He says he does not want to burden his team with keeping others outside their department updated. In addition, core team members from this functional group frequently do not attend core team meetings to discuss overall project status, risks, or changes to the plan. When asked about their absence, team members replied “if there is something the project manager thinks they must know then the project manager should reach out to them instead of making them attend a meeting.” The cycle continues because the functional executive does not want someone outside his organization providing direction to his people. He wants to be known to his people as the one who protects them from unwanted or unnecessary work that others might ask them to do. Frustration levels rise and miscommunication thrives in this environment.
Sponsorship training should be mandatory for all executive sponsors. Executives targeted for sponsorship assignments should not assume the role prior to successful completion of designated training. The goal of the training is to provide participants with a clear understanding of their roles and responsibilities as it pertains to executing the project management practices and the behaviors expected of them in this role. Soliciting feedback after the executives’ training experience can reinforce these expectations. Questions to consider:
• What were the three things you learned that surprised you?
• What might you do differently after this training?
• How might training be improved to support you or others in this role?
These questions emphasize that training is important and reinforce key concepts. Some examples of what can occur when sponsors do not understand or fulfill their role and responsibilities during the project life cycle follow.
Leadership role: The project kick-off meeting is scheduled but sponsor does not attend, leaving the project manager to explain importance of the project to the project team when an executive-level perspective would have made a significant impact and provided greater insight.
Leader/Negotiator role: A cross-functional engineering and procurement team is doing the project for the manufacturing functional executive. The sponsor (also from engineering) instructs the project manager to handle the sign-off of all major project change requests saying she does not have the time, even though the manufacturing executive continues to ask for a number of changes, but expects the project to be delivered according to the originally agreed upon schedule. The project manager is left to manage/negotiate these changes with the manufacturing executive when the sponsor would most likely have more leverage and negotiating power.
Mentoring: The sponsor repeatedly cancels status meetings with the project manager and instructs project manager to keep him updated through email or call if something is needed. Project manager requests time to sit down and discuss some of the project’s problems and get direction but the sponsor is unavailable. Lack of access leaves the project manager frustrated and forced to make critical decisions that would benefit from sponsor input. The consequence of leaving project managers to guess the sponsor’s desires are decisions that may not reflect the needs of the business and a lost opportunity for project management mentoring.
Business decisions: The sponsor does not review or provide feedback on the high-risk response plans, leaving the success of the plan in the hands of the project team to analyze the plan and determine whether the planned responses are sufficient or if others need to make suggestions. The executive sponsor is uniquely qualified to weigh in on risk management issues because he or she has access to senior management and parts of the organization that may have experienced similar risk situations. Sponsor failure to engage with risk management is a lost opportunity to leverage the executive team’s skills and connections, and the organization’s experience.
Deficient Competency or Skills
How can an organization assure that the skills and competency of a sponsor are sufficient for the challenges of the role they are being asked to fill? An organization must pursue training, mentoring, and assessment of sponsors and assure that development plans prepare them for the challenging task of sponsorship. We have observed that sponsors who are not properly prepared face a variety of challenges. An example is described in the text box below.
POOR NEGOTIATION/DECISION MAKING—The project is behind because resources are repeatedly being pulled from the cross-functional team to support other initiatives. The sponsor has been ineffective in negotiating with peers and unwilling to change the scope of the project—put it on hold, or terminate it. Instead the sponsor instructs the project team to “Figure out how to do more with less and bring it in on-time.” The issue is not that the resources are unneeded, the issue is the sponsor does not want to confront the other executive who is pulling the resources nor does he want his project to miss its delivery date which he believes will reflect badly on him. Instead of getting the help needed or making a decision to delay, he abdicates responsibility and pushes the problem back to project team. The consequence was a lot of frustration and overtime on the part of project team and late delivery of a substandard project work product. Different outcomes might have been available if the sponsor was skilled in the art of negotiating or willing to make difficult decisions about pausing or terminating the project. Other consequences: alienation of the team, staff turnover, breakdown in trust, and loss of executive level input into what trade-offs should be made among schedule, scope, and resources.
Poor Performance Not Addressed
Sponsor performance issues must be addressed when they happen. If necessary remove sponsors from the role until they have demonstrated they meet the criteria the organization expects. Do not allow an executive to “run rogue,” ignoring all standards and expected practices. This causes friction between other executives when there is an expected level of communication concerning a project’s status but one sponsor chooses not to provide it or when project teams expect sponsors to perform a role and the sponsor does not, leaving the project team without support.
Hiding the Ball—The sponsor tells the project team to keep risks internal to the project team and not include them in external status because the sponsor does not want anyone outside the team to know the project is in trouble. This goes against the standard practice of reporting all known risks and having response plans for high-risk critical projects reviewed by senior management. This directly contradicts a major effort underway to change the culture, encourage transparency, and let people know “We won’t shoot the messenger of bad news.” The sponsor is perpetuating the old culture and setting a bad example for the project team. This behavior undermines the objective of transparency, encouraging the opposite.
Insufficient Bandwidth
Most executives are not foolish or easily distracted, but they are often very busy. The executive sponsor role requires a commitment of time and attention that can be challenge for an already busy executive to fulfill. Projects that are going according to plan might require as little as 1 or 2 hours per week of a sponsor’s time. What often begins as a minor time commitment can mislead executives to underestimate the amount of time required by the role and encourage them to budget insufficient time. When projects run into difficulties they often need significantly more attention from executives and may compete with other duties. Sponsoring a strategic project encountering significant difficulties can quickly become a nearly full-time job, putting executives in an untenable and uncomfortable position.
Spread too thin—An enthusiastic young executive eagerly sought the executive sponsor role for a strategic project as a chance to prove his worth. The project initially went smoothly and the executive added sponsorship of two additional projects to his other duties. When a business partner critical to two of the three projects he was sponsoring went bankrupt, the executive found himself unable to fulfill his duty to all three projects or adequately perform his other duties. Symptoms of the problem included:
• Executive working exceptionally long hours
• Projects receiving insufficient attention—missed meetings, slow decisions, slow response to email and telephone inquiries
• Performance issues and delays on other executive duties
Fortunately the executive’s mentor recognized the problem and assigned sponsorship duties for one of the projects to another executive, then assisted the executive with the two remaining projects until the crisis had been worked through.
Unsustained Interest/Focus
Strategic planning can be focusing and energizing for an executive team. Looking beyond day-to-day operations to establish a clear direction and developing goals and tangible objectives toward achieving those goals is invigorating. The projects, programs, and initiatives that move the organization toward the goals may be exciting to launch, but can become mundane as they slowly unfold. Most sponsors take their duties seriously when a project is launched, but if a project continues relatively smoothly, some sponsors begin to take their role for granted and divert their attention to other activities. Alternatively, changes in the organization in the perceived value of a project may decrease a sponsor’s interest. From a project perspective, the symptoms of a sponsor losing interest are similar to a sponsor who is spread too thin: missed meetings, delayed decisions, and slow responses to email or phone calls. A nonproject observer of the executive would notice a difference from the overwhelmed sponsor: a sponsor who is distracted or has lost interest in a project is generally not working excessive hours or letting their other duties languish. Active executive sponsorship is a cornerstone of project success. Sponsors who are no longer engaged with their project must be re-engaged or replaced promptly if the project is to succeed.
The massive mission critical program to implement an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system had been actively sponsored for years. As different parts of the enterprise converted to the new system, the organization began to realize the long-awaited benefits. The finance department had initially sponsored the project and its lead executive served as the project sponsor. As the implementation grew, the organization created a new department to house the ERP operation going forward, and the project was administratively assigned to this new department. The executive sponsor now believed that the project had been operationalized and transferred to another organization. As a consequence, he pulled back from his duties. He began missing project meetings that he previously had led, although no new sponsor had been assigned. In the absence of active sponsorship, the project focus shifted from strategic (build this mission critical system correctly) to tactical (meet schedule commitments by trading off quality and functionality).
Assessing Cultural Readiness
Figure 3.1 highlights assessment areas discussed in this book that culminate in a framework for assessing the organization’s overall preparedness to implement an effective executive sponsorship program. Collectively these assessments signal whether the organization is primed to support project sponsorship. It is not necessary that all elements are perfect for an executive sponsorship program to work, but establishing a baseline and then regularly assessing each subject area will help focus, prioritize, and continuously improve an organization’s sponsorship program.
This version of the figure highlights the cultural readiness assessment that was the focus of this chapter. To assess cultural readiness, use the Chapter 3 material above and the 20 questions discussed earlier and engage senior management in a conversation about cultural readiness. Next, solicit senior management team impressions on the cultural attributes seen in Table 3.1 to establish a baseline. Typically it is a worthwhile exercise to allow each senior management member to individually score an assessment area and then discuss the results with the group. This allows further group discussion and collaboration, leading to buy-in for creating an overall assessment score that will be used to measure continuous improvements. The cultural readiness assessment score will then be combined with other assessments as described in Chapter 7. The result will be an organizational preparedness chart in the form of a spider diagram that provides a snapshot view for continuous improvement efforts across all assessment areas discussed in Chapter 3 through 6.
Figure 3.1 Framework for assessing a sponsorship program—cultural readiness focus
The goal of the cultural readiness assessment is to determine whether the organization is mature enough to embrace the changes necessary to support an effective sponsorship program. The cultural readiness ideal for supporting executive sponsorship would be all parts of the organization consistently understanding and demonstrating:
• The belief that sponsors serve a legitimate and valuable purpose
• A clear definition of the sponsor role, responsibilities, and expected behaviors
• Support for sponsors serving in the role
• Respect and appreciation of sponsors for their contribution to project success
• Project outcomes are improved, but not guaranteed, by active executive sponsorship
This goal can only be achieved by an engaged senior management team modeling the behaviors they expect, establishing formalized roles and responsibilities, supporting and prioritizing training for sponsors and team members, and instituting a method for sponsor assessment that includes specialized training or mentoring to address performance gaps. These topics will be covered in subsequent chapters. Senior management’s task is to emphasize and socialize the rationale for the sponsor role and demonstrate through their vision and actions that they believe sponsorship is integral to project and organizational success.
Discussion Questions
1. What are some of the impacts of culture on effective sponsorship?
2. What evidence might signal that an organization supports sponsorship?
3. What evidence might suggest areas where support for sponsorship needs improvement?
4. What are the pitfalls to avoid when implementing sponsorship and how might they be overcome?
5. What questions should senior management ask to stimulate dialogue about the organization’s readiness to support sponsorship?
6. If organizational support is not present for sponsorship support, how might an organization close the cultural gaps?
Project Management Office
The Project Management Office (PMO) can be a useful resource to senior management when looking to identify cultural barriers to project success. PMOs can provide insight to the 20 questions above and the questions in Table 3.1. The PMO may also possess or collect data on project and sponsor performance that is helpful.
When an organization seeks to modify its culture, the PMO can help socialize and reinforce the effort by realigning processes and practices to support the change. The PMO may also be in a position to provide discreet feedback during the change process if observed sponsor words or actions are inconsistent with the cultural shifts being promoted.
Project Manager
Project managers will have valuable insights into project and sponsorship challenges they have faced in an organization. They may also have a perspective on the 20 questions that senior management should consider. When asked to provide these insights, project managers should strive to be factual and not personal. Recommendations to overcome cultural barriers should be framed in a positive way. Rather than, “While serving as a sponsor, Mr. Jones made clear that he didn’t want to hear bad news.” consider, “I believe our organization would benefit from more open and timely dialog about issues and risks.” Work with your PMO or with your peer project managers as a group to identify which questions are most appropriate for project managers to answer, for example, questions on teams, standards, roles, and responsibilities.
When organizations begin efforts to modify their culture, project managers have a particularly important role. Team members often look to the project manager for cues about whether attempted cultural changes are genuine or insincere and whether they are stalled or progressing. The leadership position of the project manager is key to nurturing early attempts at shifting the culture and encouraging patience and persistence as barriers are encountered along the way. The project manager can also provide direct feedback to sponsors diplomatically if sponsor words or actions might be perceived as inconsistent with stated organizational change goals. Project managers can have a big influence on the effectiveness of a cultural change initiative if they choose to support the effort.
Notes
1. Peter Senge. 1990. The Fifth Discipline: The Art & Practice of the Learning Organization, (New York, NY: Doubleday).
2. Gerald Weinberg. 1991. Quality Software Management Volume 3: Congruent Action, (New York, NY: Dorset House).
3. Lisa Bodell. May 15, 2012. “5 Ways Process Is Killing Your Productivity,” Fast Company, accessed July 17, 2016, http://www.fastcompany.com/1837301/5-ways-process-killing-your-productivity.
4. Atul Gawande. 2009. The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right, (New York, NY: Metropolitan Books).
5. Matthew Syed. 2015. Black Box Thinking: Why Most People Never Learn From Their Mistakes – But Some Do, (New York, NY: Penguin Random House).
6. “Theory X and Theory Y,” “NetMBA Business Knowledge Center,” accessed May 22, 2016, http://www.netmba.com/mgmt/ob/motivation/mcgregor/.