Projects’ success depends on many factors – and without discounting the importance of most of these things (e.g., project manager’s experience and skills, team’s ability and cohesiveness, the organization, the marketplace) – perhaps the most critical for success factor is the support the project gets in the organization through prioritization, project governance and sponsorship.

Despite the importance governance and sponsorship have and the senior level where they take place, they are often overlooked and many projects end up failing due to lack of sufficient support form the organization and from senior management. The lack of meaningful support is driven by lack of recognition of the importance of this support and the lack of time and capacity by senior management to do what they may view as “babysitting projects”; especially after putting the project in the good hands of a qualified PM.

Due to the criticality of successful project implementation to organization’s bottom line and success, it is important to increase the awareness around and the focus on providing sufficient support and conditions to enable project success. 

This one-day power-session reviews the role of senior management in providing support to project success and explores the application of impactful techniques to facilitate the support and conditions for project success.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

By the end of the session, participants will be able to:

• Realize the challenges organizational and governance structures pose
• Establish techniques to address and overcome organizational challenges to project success
• Foster a healthy environment for project management success
• Apply concepts to increase project sponsorship effectiveness
• Introduce approaches to improve PM and sponsors’ collaboration
• Improve organizational alignment and cohesiveness between strategic initiatives and projects
• Explore ways to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the entire governance and sponsorship processes, including prioritization, decision making, and alignment

WHO SHOULD ATTEND

The course is designed for project sponsors, managers of project managers and organizational leaders who are project stakeholders – at any capacity. It is also designed for business directors and vice-presidents, public sector directors and program managers, human resources managers, operations managers, and team leads. Project managers and senior project managers can also benefit from this eye-opening course about how to better get along with their senior management and sponsors.

PREREQUISITE

There is no prerequisite for this course. It functions as a stand-alone course.

MATERIALS

You will receive a course binder containing copies of presentation slides, exercises, and suggested solutions.

WHAT YOU WILL LEARN