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Getting the Sponsor You Need
Rule 9 - No Sponsor, No Start
Hell on Earth is to be a project manager without the bat, bag of money and other executive support offered by an effective project sponsor.
This rule raises some very significant questions regarding professional behaviour. The most significant is:
"If the evidence is that a project without effective sponsorship will fail, why would a professional project manager start a project without effective sponsorship?"
The typical answers to this question include:
"When the project gets into trouble, the sponsor will emerge to sort it out";
"This is not a big project so it doesn't matter?"
"The project manager can act as a project sponsor by default"; and
"Our sponsors are always useless anyway".
and they reflect the difficulty many organisations and project managers face in attempting to build effective sponsorship roles.
It is our group's belief that professional project managers - like you - must take some responsibility in changing this situation. Strategies include giving copies of this paper to your senior managers, using the research of The Standish Group as a support, talking with your peers, consulting your Internal Audit or Risk Management group (if you have one) and educating and educating again.
Most likely, the organisation that is placing you in this situation will already have a history of projects that failed because of poor project sponsorship. This should give you additional ammunition in wining this battle.
Simply, break this Rule only if you are a masochist.
Hopefully, the rules in this paper will assist you in avoiding having to decide whether you are masochistic or not.