Exploring the Role of the Project Sponsor

To be effective, project managers are expected to ‘get upper management on side’, or ensure that they are at a level within their organisation at least one higher than the project team, and by inference in a position of influence. As organisations define more and more of their activities as projects there are increasing numbers of project managers and these project managers are expected to manage widely varying projects and teams consisting of any number of team members from any level within the organisation. Not all of these project managers can be part of senior management, giving rise to a need for a mechanism to give authority to the project manager who may no longer have access to or the direct support of the ‘executives ’ or ‘upper management’. This need is often addressed, either formally or informally, through what is commonly referred to as a project sponsor. Despite the general acceptance of a project sponsor role in the management of projects, the actual role and responsibilities of the project sponsor are often unclear and in fact differ considerably across organisations. As with the majority of project management roles, there is considerable variation in definition and often considerable confusion as to the sponsor’s role and how the sponsor may contribute to or effect the project’s outcome