Is Your Project Sponsor Counterproductive? – How Astute Project Managers Turn difficult Situations Around: Yogi Schulz

In the energy industry, the role of project sponsors is to champion project managers and their teams to help them deliver successful projects. Unfortunately, some project sponsors willfully neglect their role. They’re motivated by the worst energy executive instincts that include:

• Political one-upmanship.
• Running away at the slightest sign of project difficulty.
• Burnishing their reputations by pushing others aside.
• Grandstanding to impress their boss.

Here are some ways project sponsors behave counterproductively and how astute project managers turn such difficult situations around.

You can explore these and other tips to help project sponsors and managers be more effective in our new book, A Project Sponsor’s Warp-Speed Guide – Improving Project Performance. It’s available from Amazon at this link.

Criticizes the project

Some project sponsors criticize their project publicly. They may express that the project is taking too long or that they could lead much better. Their track record drilling wells leads them to believe they could perform better than the team.

To avoid such criticism undermining project team performance, project managers must discuss the project sponsor’s concerns privately and diplomatically.

Project managers can point out that the project sponsor’s association with the project is widely known. The criticism could backfire on the sponsor when employees wonder why the sponsor lacks the management savvy to address the issues with the team privately. Project managers can ask about the basis for the criticism and offer to correct it.

Challenges the project benefits

In discussions with other executives or the project manager, some project sponsors challenge project benefits, such as reduced operating costs. The motivation for the challenge may be a misunderstanding or an effort to distance themselves from accountability for the project.

To avoid undermining the organization’s political support for the project, project managers must contest the project sponsor diplomatically.

Astute project managers will recognize that the project sponsor may not understand the benefits and will schedule a review with them. The outcome of the review is typically one or more of the following:

• Enhanced understanding of the benefits by the project sponsor.
• A revision of the benefit descriptions for improved clarity.
• Some adjustments of the tangible benefit estimates.

In rare cases, the outcome is cancelling the project because the sponsor is no longer prepared to champion the benefits. Sometimes, the outcome is cancelling the project because an updated cost-at-completion estimate has increased enough to wipe out the original or the revised cost-benefit. Cancelling a project is always better than letting it drag on and waste more money.

Disappears when needed

Some project sponsors disappear to the field when they become aware of risks that have become a reality or problematic decisions about scope, approach or priorities. The motivation for the disappearance is typically to avoid accountability.

To avoid the project stalling, project managers must challenge the project sponsor and the steering committee diplomatically.

Astute project managers will schedule a meeting of the steering committee to discuss:

• How the project team is responding to risks that have become a reality.
• The project team’s recommendation for addressing a problematic situation.

The typical outcome is:

• Relief for the project sponsor when they observe steering committee support.
• Added confidence in the project manager and the team.

Claims credit for the project

Some project sponsors claim personal credit for the project’s progress and achievements when that credit primarily belongs to the team. Typically, the motivation is to build their reputation among peers at the Petroleum Club.

To avoid inflated claims undermining project team performance, project managers must discuss the project sponsor’s behaviour diplomatically.

Astute project managers will schedule a meeting with their project sponsor to discuss the following:

• How the sponsor’s claims have hurt the project team.
• How can the project team improve communication so that the organization is more knowledgeable about the project’s progress and achievements?

The typical outcome is:

• A project sponsor who will be more cautious about their communication.
• An enhanced project communication plan.

Changes project parameters

Some project sponsors insist on changes to the project scope, approach or priorities, such as adding the SAGD division to the scope, with little or no consultation with the project manager or the team. The motivations for this unilateral action include:

• Having read about a new technology in a trade magazine, and believing its use will help the project.
• Believing that the project can be completed for less than the approved budget.
• Believing that a project scope addition will significantly increase project benefits.
• Believing they have identified a superior approach to completing the project scope.
• Believing that a reordering of priorities will lead to earlier completion.

Project managers must treat the ideas seriously to avoid having the project sponsor conclude they’re only an inconsequential figurehead or dealing with an insubordinate project manager.

Astute project managers will schedule a meeting with their project sponsor to:

• Remind the project sponsor how the agreed project change order process works.
• Discuss how the project sponsor’s ideas may be more disruptive than helpful to the project.

The typical outcome is an agreement that the project manager will have the team write a draft project change order, which the project manager will review with the project sponsor. Whether or not the project manager will actually present the draft change order is left vague.

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You can explore these and other tips for effective project sponsors in A Project Sponsor’s Warp-Speed Guide – Improving Project Performance, a new book I wrote with my co-author Jocelyn Lapointe. It’s available from Amazon at this link. View the book as a reference tool. You don’t have to read it all to obtain actionable insights.

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