Having a sponsor on a project is so important and critical to your project.
Firstly, let’s start off with what a sponsor is. Think about a sponsor as having two key roles – the first being they have the authority to spend the money. Let’s say the project is going to cost you five hundred dollars, they can spend five hundred dollars. If it’s fifty thousand, they can spend fifty thousand dollars. If it’s two million dollars, they can spend two million dollars. In other words, they have the authority to spend the money.
Secondly, a sponsor has the capacity to, what I call, legitimise the change. They can physically make it happen. One of the key roles there is to remove any roadblocks that might appear, including people you have the clout to ensure that all parties are aligned and they can actually make that happen. You have to make sure they understand their role as well.
I recently worked with a client who had a sponsor but the project was failing and they couldn’t figure out why and then delving into it and on reflection realised the sponsor didn’t actually have the organisational clout to actually make it happen and didn’t actually truly understand the role of what it is they were supposed to be doing. Once we got that realigned, we’ve got the correct sponsor on board and they knew their expectations, they were able to move on and successfully execute that project.
If you’d like to learn more about change management for your organisation, contact us for a free consultation: https://moyleen.com/calendar/.
