Engaging Project Sponsors
The most important relationship for a project manager or PMO leader is the one with the project sponsor. The sponsor’s support is crucial in achieving the project’s aims and objectives, so engaging project sponsors is critical.
However, you still need to actively engage with sponsors. Simply having ‘sponsor’ added to their long list of daily responsibilities is not enough to guarantee that someone will actively participate in the way you need them to for the project to be successful.
Project sponsors often have many demands on their time and several projects they are sponsoring. You want them to be actively engaged with your project and the PMO processes, so it is important to build a positive working relationship.
Here are 5 tips for engaging project sponsors and how to make the best of your relationship with sponsors in your organization.
1. Flex your style to suit their preferences
Everyone has different preferences for taking in information and interacting with others. It’s your job to learn what works best for your sponsor and tailor your interactions accordingly.
Find out what you can about the sponsor before you meet them for the first time. Talk to people who have worked with them before. Try to uncover their communication preferences and working styles – anything that will help you pitch your communication most effectively.
If you can’t find these things out in advance, ask the sponsor for their preferences when you first get a chance to talk to them.
If you don’t want to ask them outright how they would like to be communicated with, watch them in meetings. Listen to how they talk. Are they focused on the human stories behind the project? Do they respond well to data and figures? Do they approach problems from a logical or emotional perspective, or somewhere in between?
They may prefer to see a diagram or a prototype over a technical specification document. They may prefer a voicemail over an email. Listen, observe and test your communications with your sponsor. Adapt how you engage with them to get the best results for you both.
2. Respect their time
Structure how you engage with them to set expectations and show you respect their time. For example, if you say you are going to provide a short status update every Friday, then do so. They may be relying on it for their onward and upward communication.
If you meet with them, even informally, have a few bullet points of what you want to get out of the time so you can both prepare. Start and end your meeting on time. Be prepared to condense the time you thought you had into the 10 minutes they actually have available for you that day: know what on your agenda should take priority.
When the meeting finishes, ask what else they need from you, or what else you can help them with.
When you talk with them, use clear and unambiguous terminology. Avoid the inevitable project jargon that will have sprung up around your project. You and the core team might understand all the acronyms, but the sponsor isn’t living and breathing the project like you are.
Senior leaders are sometimes reticent about asking for explanations of things they don’t understand, so make it easy for them. Be clear in your communication as that will also help them understand what you require them to do. If you need them to take an action, ask outright for them to do so. They aren’t mind-readers and some sponsors won’t step in until you ask them to for fear of being accused of micro-managing or because they aren’t close enough to the detail to fully take action without your support.
3. Show you can be trusted
Sponsors may need to share confidential information with you. They need to know you can handle access to that confidential information in an appropriate way. They need to be able to trust you. Honour their confidences and respect the position they have in the organisation.
Trust takes time to build, so don’t expect it to be there overnight. However, it takes seconds to lose the trust of someone, so be conscious of how you are acting with your sponsor. In particular, focus on:
- Doing what you said you were going to do and delivering on your promises
- Completing tasks they have asked you to do
- Escalating problems with a couple of recommendations for next steps.
If you can, and you feel it’s appropriate to do so, try to get to know your project sponsor as a person. You don’t have to be their best friend, but some level of personal connection will also help you build a trusting relationship.
4. Demonstrate your competence
Meet deadlines. Talk about the progress the team is making before your sponsor asks to hear about it. Work to ensure the sponsor sees you and the rest of the PMO team as a competent, credible safe pair of hands.
Your project sponsor, and stakeholders in general, want to feel secure in the individual they have chosen to lead the project. They want to know that you know what to do.
5. Tell the truth
Your project delivery organization should have a culture of no surprises. No sponsor likes to be blindsided in a meeting because someone else around the table knows more about their project than they do.
Be honest and be fast in your communication, especially when it comes to sharing potentially bad news. Be truthful in your communication and never try to hide an issue. You can always say what you are proactively doing to deal with a problem and let them know you’ll update them in 24 hours when you might be asking for their support in resolving it.
Sponsors appreciate being informed. You’re giving them information that helps them do their job more effectively. If you think you are sharing too much detail with them, ask what they think. Would they prefer reporting by exception, or are they happy with the level of detail you’re providing? Set some parameters around what needs to be mentioned to them and what problems you can handle yourself to save them getting involved. These parameters may change over time as they come to trust your judgment more.
Engaging project sponsors isn’t always easy. These 5 tips won’t guarantee your sponsor is engaged the whole way through your project or PMO activity, but if you can build a good working relationship with them, they are more likely to take your calls and be there when you need them.
This is an edited extract from Engaging Stakeholders of Projects: How to harness people power (APM, 2020) by Elizabeth Harrin.