Category Archives for Project Governance

No one wants their project to fail. Despite this, project failure is all too common. So is it Possible to Prevent Project Failure? It certainly is, and all you need to do is follow all the principles of good Project Management, including foreseeing and acting on all threats. ‘Easier said than done’ you say. Indeed. […]

If a project definition defines your project, what is a Strategic Project Definition? Dr Mike Clayton is founder of OnlinePMCourses.com. Here, he answers this question, in under 5 minutes.

A robust risk culture goes beyond having a strong basic risk management process. But the rewards for the extra work you’ll put in to build that culture are huge. Particularly for large, complex, or strategically important projects. Some of my readers may hope to influence the risk culture of their whole organization. But, for many, […]

Project Governance is central to the success and accountability of your projects. So, what is Project Governance? So, what is Project Governance? Dr Mike Clayton is founder of OnlinePMCourses.com. Here, he answers this question, in under 5 minutes.

The Stage Gate Process gets too little love from Project Managers. Yet it has the potential to transform your project management, deliver more successful projects, and make you a better project manager. A Stage Gate is also known by many other names: Phase Gate (PMBOK 6th Edition) Gateway (PRINCE2) Boundary Gate (most pleasing expression of […]

Call them your sponsor, your boss, or your client if you like. But one thing we all know as a Project Manager is this. Our job is to do what our Project Sponsor wants. But here’s the question… Do you know what your Project Sponsor wants? If you don’t, you’d better find out quickly. And […]

There’s one distinctive sign that your project is going well. A stakeholder approaches you in the corridor. ‘We’re very pleased with how your project is going…’ they say. ‘The only thing is… we’ve changed out minds.’ Oh no. This is a job for Project Change Control. Even on the most traditional of projects, you will […]

Project Managers have many responsibilities. And one of the most difficult is Project Estimation: to predict what will happen in the future. Because projects are fraught with uncertainty. One of the most widely used approaches to improving estimation is the PERT Method. And Project Sponsors dislike uncertainty. So they expect Project Managers to reduce it. So, […]

In an earlier article, we gave you eight approaches for how to engage your project sponsor. But the commonest challenge is ‘what if I have a difficult project sponsor?’ So in this article, we’ll look at seven flavours of difficult project sponsor, and tactics for handling them.

Too often, Project Governance is seen as ‘worthy but dull’. Project Managers can easily believe it is nothing but an annoying intrusion into their autonomy. Senior managers find it a distraction. In addition, when they need to do it, these top people usually believe it is straight forward; they don’t need anyone to tell them […]