Call them your sponsor, boss, or client. One thing every Project Manager knows is that your job is to do what our Project Sponsor wants. Or, at least, that’s what your sponsor thinks! So, what are the Project Sponsor priorities to address?
The BIG Question…
Do you know what your Project Sponsor’s priorities are? What do they most want?
If you don’t know, you’d better find out quickly. And that’s what this article is all about.
By the Way, is it Your Job to do What Your Project Sponsor Wants?
Some will argue that it isn’t. It is to do what your employer needs, to serve your stakeholders, or to meet the expectations of the organization that’s paying the bills. These are all true.
But this article is going to make one giant assumption: that your sponsor’s job is to represent these faithfully. In another article, I’ve examined the vexed question of what to do if your sponsor goes rogue. For now, we’ll assume that serving our sponsor, and delivering what they want, is at the heart of your role.
What This Article Covers
This article has a very simple structure. We’ll look at the long list of what your Project Sponsor wants. Then, we’ll hone it down to the top two Project Sponsor priorities.
- Your Project Sponsor wants a Shopping-list of Competencies
- Communicate Exceptionally Well (Project Sponsor Priority #1)
- Take What’s Yours (Project Sponsor Priority #2)
Your Project Sponsor Wants a Shopping-list of Competencies
For most Project Sponsors, the starting place is to have a highly competent Project Manager. This way, they can feel comfortable leaving he day to day project management to you. A good sponsor will want to be as hands-off as possible, and as hands-on as necessary.
A good #Project Sponsor will want to be as hands-off as possible, and as hands-on as necessary. Share on XBut I shan’t use this article to list the specific project management competencies of an effective Project Manager. If that interests you, why not take a look at one of these articles:
- New Project? What are Your Big 7 Project Management Priorities?
- How to Be the Best Project Manager You Can Be
- 12 Essential Things a Project Manager Should do: How are you doing?
Instead, let’s look at some of the general professional competencies that your Project Sponsor wants.
22 Competences your Project Sponsor Wants
Here is the list that I came up with, thinking about all my experiences working with sponsors, as a project manager, a trainer, and a consultant.
- Trust – first and foremost, they want to know they can trust you
- Confidence – that you are doing a great job with their project
- Order – your sponsor wants to know that everything is as it should be
- Predictability – knowing what is going to happen next
- Efficiency – minimum effort and wastage
- Effectiveness – maximum focus and results
- Progress – things constantly happening
- Control – knowing that they can influence outcomes
- Safety – confident that nothing serious will go wrong
- Risk control – knowing risks are being managed
- Durability – knowing the work will be robust
- Quality – standards are the highest
- Facts – getting the information free from bias or opinion
- Overview – not wanting too much detail. But…
- Details – wanting access to every bit of information
- Commercial – focus on the bottom line
- Economy – focus on costs
- Ideas – wanting concepts and grand visions
- Innovation – wanting new ways to do things
- Creativity – wanting completely new ideas
- Independence – wanting you to act autonomously
- Judgement – want you to make sound decisions
That’s a lot of stuff, and it’s only the start.
A Clearer Idea of Your Own Project Sponsor’s Priorities
It will always help to speak to your sponsor at the start of any new project, to understand what they want from a project manager in general and what they particularly want for this project.
There will almost certainly be some things that are not on my list, but I doubt there will be many.
So How Can we Render this Big Old List into Two Project Sponsor Priorities?
To get some real leverage on this giant list, I recommend you focus on two things. I strongly believe they capture most Projet Sponsor priorities in most cases.
First:
Communicate exceptionally well
Second:
Take what’s yours
These two project sponsor priorities will form the substance of this article.
Project Sponsor Priority #1: Communicate Exceptionally Well
I often find myself offering a simple piece advice…
The most important part of your job as a #Project Manger is communicating Share on XIt’s not original to me, but it is very true.
And the basics of good communication are pretty simple. So, it is surprising how many project managers seem to neglect them. Yet, your project sponsor wants nothing more than great communication. It’s how they will start to trust you and it is the basis of satisfying them on much of the shopping list of 22 competencies they want to see.
We will look at the basics, before turning to how to frame your message, for maximum impact.
The Basics of Good Project Communication
If you get all these basics right, then everything else will be the icing on the cake. Indeed, these basics will also enable you to influence your sponsor, when you need to. So don’t be seduced into worrying about sophisticated techniques of persuasion until you are confident you have got all of these five points right. And the key to all of them is the golden rule for giving your sponsor what they want: respect.
When you truly respect your Project Sponsor, these five will be easy to get right:
- courtesy
- assertiveness
- listening
- timing
- structure
Courtesy
Everyone deserves courtesy and, as long as you don’t confuse it with obsequiousness, it is a necessary part of the glue that holds relationships together. Respect the social norms of your workplace.
If you and your sponsor come from different cultural backgrounds, be sure to find out what cultural norms they are used to. Then, you can pay them the courtesy of respecting their cultural standards, when working with them. This is an especially important point in multinational projects or global organizations, where you may be working with an expatriate sponsor – or you may be an expat in the sponsor’s country.
TIP: From time-to-time, ask your sponsor for their advice or opinion. Show them that you value their insight and experience. Not only will this flatter them, but you can learn a lot from it too.
Assertiveness
Your Project Sponsor wants you to be assertive. But you need to recognize assertiveness as a balance of:
- Respecting your sponsor, and also
- Having the self-confidence to avoid feeling inferior and allowing yourself to become a passive recipient of their opinions, without standing up for your own.
It is common to feel a little intimidated by your project sponsor. Especially if they are older, have more experience, or have a dominant personality. Whatever the difference in personal power, status, or professional authority, you are both intelligent, mature professionals who should be able to communicate ideas based on their merits, in a way that seeks the best outcomes for you both and for your organization.
TIP: If your boss makes you feel small in some way, ask yourself if this is a result of:
a. deliberate actions on their part (which we might call ‘bullying’), or
b. you carrying your childhood perceptions of authority into a context where it should now mean something very different.
Listening
We all think we are good at listening. After all, we have been doing it all day, every day, since our youngest days. In fact, most of us spend a lot of time only half-listening, while the other half of our attention is focused on figuring out what we are going to do or say next. Pay your sponsor the respect of listening carefully to what they say, before pausing to think through how to respond.
That pause will create a silence. During that silence, your boss is not likely to be thinking:
‘Aha, they don’t have an answer’.
They are far more likely to be thinking:
‘Good, I’ve said something important, and they are taking the time to consider what to say next.’
The more carefully you listen, the more likely you are to spot the subtleties of what they are saying. And, in complex situations, you’ll want to spot the subtleties of what they are not saying as well!
TIP: It can be lonely being a senior person. Sometimes what your project sponsor wants is a good listening to, while they get something off their chest. If you get the chance to do this for them, take it; it is a huge compliment.
But you must absolutely treat whatever you hear in confidence (unless, of course, there are legal or regulatory reasons to do otherwise).
Timing
Choose the timing of your communication with care. First, check what else your sponsor may be concerned with. The more you can schedule conversations, the more likely your sponsor will be to feel prepared for them – and you too. In general, give bad news as soon as possible, but don’t let your enthusiasm to communicate intrude on more important matters that your sponsor may be dealing with. Your project is not their only concern.
Get to know their moods too – sometimes a tactical delay can get you a better response.
If in doubt, ask them:
‘is now a good time to talk about… ?’
And, when you start a conversation, even if there is a specific time slot in your diaries, always check:
‘how much time do you have?’
What you don’t want to do is to assume they have half an hour, only to find ten minutes in, that your sponsor has an urgent, un-scheduled call to make, and you have not got to the most important thing you needed to speak about.
TIP: The more often you can initiate meetings with your sponsor, the more you can control the agenda. This will then relieve them of an unwanted job, allow you to get what you need, and show your sponsor that you are in control of your project.
Structure
Possibly, more than anything else, your Project Sponsor wants an easy life! So, put your message into a clear and succinct structure that will enable them to assimilate your key points quickly and easily. Here are three examples:
Example 1
“Here’s what happened…
“This is what it means…
“Here are our principal options…
“This is my recommendation, which I’d like you to endorse…”
Example 2
“This is what I’d like to do…
“These are the implications if we do it…
“And these are the implications if we don’t…
“Here is what I need, to get started…”
Example 3
“These are the problems we are having…
“Here is the solution I have discovered…
“This is what I need from you…”
Framing your Message
You will get the best response from your sponsor when you can assess what their primary concerns are, in the current situation. This is not only about their personal agenda; it is also about which stakeholders they are most concerned with. In order of proximity, your boss may be thinking about:
- me (themselves),
- us (their team),
- us (the organization), or
- them (customers, clients, regulators, suppliers, or any other outsiders to your organization).
Let’s consider each of these in turn…
WAM: ‘What about me?’
The WAM factor is often dominant: it is human instinct. If this dominates, you need to focus your comments on addressing what your project sponsor wants for themselves. What are their needs, concerns, and priorities?
To accept your recommendations, for example, they need to feel that those recommendations will be good for them, personally, and further their own agenda. To do this well, you have to put yourself into your sponsor’s shoes and see the situation as they will be seeing it.
WAU: ‘What about us?’
Some sponsors are fiercely protective of their units, divisions, or teams. The first thing to understand about your sponsor, therefore, is who ‘us’ is, for them.
So, it is the effects on that group that will be their first concern. Now you have to think through all of the ‘local’ implications and make sure you are able to address them.
WAO: ‘What about the organization?’
Of course, your sponsor’s job must include acting in the best interests of their organization. Where there is conflict, good sponsors will subordinate their own agenda and be prepared to disappoint their own team, so their project can do the best for their organization.
In this case, you need to frame your message in terms of how it affects the organization. So, you need to couch any options you offer, and recommendations you make, in terms of what is best for the organization.
WAT: ‘What about them?’
Often, the best interests of the organization will be served by doing the right thing by its customers, clients, regulators, and other stakeholders. Even if there is a short-term cost to the organization of doing so, your sponsor may well be interested in the longer-term reputational implications of their choices.
In these cases, you need to assess who all of the stakeholders are and what their conflicting interests and differing levels of influence dictate for your alternative choices. As a project manager, you should be thinking this way already.
Project Sponsor Priority #2: Take What’s Yours
What your Project Sponsor wants is not just a set of competencies and good communication. It is also about what you do.
Do you take responsibility for your project, and do you take the initiative when issues or opportunities arise? How do you respond to stakeholders, and are you able to take control of a situation? These are things your sponsor will expect of you and are therefore the subjects we will look at in this section.
Take Responsibility
First and foremost, take responsibility for your project’s performance. Responsibility is not just assigned; it is a choice you make to follow through and allow your reputation to grow or diminish according to your performance. Consequently, if you do not perform as well as you wish, or if you make a mistake, take responsibility for your failings:
- own up,
- say you are sorry,
- and put things right.
We all make mistakes; it is an important part of how we learn. What matters is how you respond to them:
- Will you understand that the mistakes were yours, and learn from them, or
- Will you disown the mistakes and pretend there is nothing you could have done differently?
Not only will the former approach make a better impression on your sponsor, but it will also make you a better project manager.
TIP: If you want your sponsor to see you as a star performer, take on more than you are asked to. But don’t take on too much: you will only get the bigger projects if you constantly deliver to the highest standards.
Take the Initiative
When the right opportunities arise, a good project manager will seize the opportunity. But equally, you must also know when the risks or importance of what you are about to do mean that you need to check first. There is a saying:
It is better to ask forgiveness than to ask permission’
But, this is not always true.
Firstly, it depends upon how much forgiveness you are going to need. If the consequences of misreading the situation, or of failing, are relatively minor, then this could be the right approach. But where you are going to need a mountain of forgiveness, you would have been best to seek permission first. This also depends on your sponsor’s personality: some are more comfortable with higher levels of forgiveness.
What your Project Sponsor wants is for you to take the initiative to solve problems for yourself, rather than continually reverting to them for help.
Yes, your sponsor may well have seen this problem before and be able to solve it more quickly than you can. But likewise, the benefit of you solving it will be in you learning from the situation, as they once did. Only bring your sponsor the problems that need their specific knowledge, authority, or access to resources. Even then, it is far better to come to them with your recommendations than with questions.
Take Control
Things go wrong on projects. It’s their nature. And your Project Sponsor wants to know that you will take control of the situation, by:
- evaluating it accurately, for yourself,
- making your own plans, and
- requesting the resources that you need, to get the job done.
You will need to lead your team, and sometimes, your stakeholders. Nothing inspires confidence more than a calm approach and a sense that you know what you are doing.
So, think things through, and brief your people carefully. Your sponsor will be far more likely to trust you with bigger projects when they feel you are able to take control, and remain calm and objective – even if things do not go exactly according to plan.
Take Feedback
Some sponsors are better than others at giving feedback. But feedback is a vital part of your learning and career development, so if your sponsor is less proactive in this area, then request feedback at appropriate times, and in a respectful way.
When your sponsor offers you feedback, it matters how you respond to it. The right response is to:
- listen carefully to what they have to say
- respond to their questions directly
- ask clarifying questions, if you do not fully understand their comments
- think carefully about what the feedback means
If they do not cover a particular area of what you have done, ask about it.
The mistake we often make, in receiving feedback, is to take observations about our performance as criticisms, and then to try and defend ourselves. Good feedback will help you become more aware of what you have done and how it was part of a sequence of causes and effects. It will help you understand your choices and reflect on their impact. It is about learning from, not justifying, your experiences. These three videos are from our sister channel, Management Courses:
TIP: Financially, the most successful professionals are those with greatest self-control. So, take the tough feedback as a valuable lesson, and reflect on it. Getting upset or angry will tell your boss that you haven’t really learned and so are not ready for the next level of responsibility.
If you have made a mistake, don’t worry: your sponsor knows that you will make mistakes.
If they are a good manager, they will know that this is how we learn. Indeed, it is probably how they learned a lot of what they know now, so they should be taking the attitude that, as long as you learn from your mistakes, then they can forgive anything but disobedience, dishonesty, or carelessness.
What are Your Thoughts?
I have set out what I think are the most important things your Project Sponsor wants from their Project Manager. What would you like to add to this?
I love reading your ideas and will respond to every contribution. So, please do add your comments below.
By the way…
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