PROJECT MANAGEMENT FOR TELECOMMUNICATIONS MANAGERS CHAPTER 14 potx

Chapter
14
SENIOR MANAGEMENT
The responsibility of senior management within a company is to guard,
further and strengthen the business of that company. Each senior manager
oversees some area of the overall business, generally managing a subset of
the corporate staff. This concept is true no matter what the type of company,
and it applies even in an association or government organization. Because of
the breadth of this responsibility, senior management is generally not
intimately involved with any particular project. Instead the responsibility is
to support a number of projects, to prioritize a broad set of project under his
control, and to help with prioritization of a broader set of projects underway
within the company as a whole. The executive is generally measured on
contributing positively to a subset of the business. He will take any required
action to ensure that the corporation is strong overall, and that in particular,
his responsibility areas are successful. The nature of this job necessitates that
no one senior manager is familiar with many projects. Most senior managers
are not familiar with the fine details of even one project; it is not their job to
be so. They need to focus their energies on the higher-level picture. They
rely on their staff to keep them informed of those aspects of the ongoing
work that they should be aware of. A good executive is able to understand
the situation based on the reports he is given, and will assist with appropriate
support when presented with problems.
Senior management is involved in all projects, by necessity, because, if
nothing else, senior management is responsible for the allocation of the
funding. In project management terms, this puts senior management in the
role of project sponsor. This chapter starts with a discussion of the project
sponsor – who can be a sponsor, and what this role entails. Senior
management must also consider the amount of risk the company is taking
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when any project is undertaken. Here we discuss risk management and how
it applies to projects.
Let’s start with the concept of sponsor. There are various views on what
constitutes a project sponsor. All of the views include some sort of project
ownership. In some cases people describe what might be called a project
champion. In other cases, where a project is being done for a specific
customer, the people mention the customer. Still others mention senior
management within the company.
From the PMBOK
®
Guide we get the official definition of a project
sponsor:
“The individual or group within or external to the performing
organization that provides the financial resources, in cash or in kind,
for the project” PMBOK
®
Guide, section 2.2
The two points to consider from this definition are that the sponsor is
within the performing organization, and that the sponsor provides the
financing for the project. These two points let out the customer as the project
sponsor, and also disqualify some project champions. When we consider the
roles for the sponsor we will see why an internal sponsor is needed. As for
choosing the person with the financial stake rather than a project champion
who may not have a financial stake, the premise is that if someone has the
major financial stake, this person will have a strong interest in the project,
and thus will be interested in and willing to fulfill the sponsorship roles.
While this is generally true, there are sometimes cases in which the project
champion might be more useful to the team than the defined sponsor. Let’s
look at the roles of a sponsor.
The roles of the sponsor include:

guardian of the “business vision”
resource allocator, negotiator
clarify critical issues
communication link
support the PM and the team
The sponsor usually issues the Project Charter and evaluates project
performance and deliverables. He should be senior enough to resolve
conflicts.
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Senior Management
As the guardian of the business vision, the sponsor must ensure that the
project objectives are consistent with the corporate objectives. He will
ensure that the company management understands the value the project
brings to the company within the business vision. He will also ensure that
the project team clearly understands the corporate strategic goals, and how
the project fits with them
The financier of the project is essentially the resource allocator. The
sponsor will usually approve the allocation of funds, and also select the
project manager, but usually he will delegate the allocation of personnel
resources to the project manager.
If there are project issues to be solved, the sponsor can help the team to
understand the corporate implications of the potential directions, to ensure
that they make decisions that are most beneficial to the corporation.
The project sponsor should be senior to the project manager, and should
hold a position senior enough to enable him to protect and support the
project. This includes bi-directional communication regarding any issues
related to the project. When the executives discuss potential budget cuts, the
sponsor speaks for the project, to protect the funding. When projects are
discussed, the sponsor touts the project benefits to the corporation. When
project prioritization is discussed, the sponsor fights to maintain a high level

of priority for the project. When corporate issues threaten the project, the
sponsor provides information to the Project Manager to enable the team to
prepare their response. Communication is a key function provided by the
sponsor. The PM needs to keep in mind that executives are not able to be
aware of the details of all projects underway. In fact, one of the duties of the
PM is keeping the sponsor well informed about the status of the project, the
success, and the problems that the team is facing.
The sponsor supports the PM, the team and the project. When additional
resources or specific skills are required, and the PM’s requests do not yield
satisfactory results, the team depends upon the sponsor to help with the
negotiations.
Considering these responsibilities of the sponsor, it is clear that there is a
need for an internal sponsor. This does not diminish the role of the client. If
the project is being done for a client, this client is a very key stakeholder
whose requests must be carefully considered. But there is also a need for
someone within the company who has access to the right information, who
can speak for the project and who can assist with resource or conflict issues.
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Senior Management
The sponsor usually writes the charter, or at least approves the charter.
One of the main reasons that this is the case is that the project has to be
implemented in such a way that it aligns to the overall corporate strategy.
Therefore the sponsor’s input is invaluable in defining the project. This
should apply to all projects, even though they occur in different forms and
very different industries.
It is expected that the individual who provides the funding will have
significant interest in the project, and generally this is the case. Thus most
projects have the required support available. However, from time to time the
person providing the funding is not appropriate as the sponsor, or the
sponsor takes either too much interest, or too little interest in the project. In

any of these cases, the PM has a problem that must be addressed.
Consider the first case. How could the project-funding provider not be
appropriate as a sponsor? In one case, this happened because of the business
relationships amongst companies. The project occurred in one of three sister
companies. The books of the three companies were completely separate, but
there were close working relationships amongst the three. The PM was in
one company, but the senior manager who had the most interest, and the
most at stake, in the project, was in one of the other two companies.
However, since the books of the companies were separate, it was not
possible for the manager to provide the project budget. Instead, the funding
was provided by senior management within the company in which the PM
worked. Technically, the owner of this budget was the project sponsor. But
this manager did not have a strong interest in the project, knowing that the
project champion was in the sister company. So, in this case, the technical
sponsor did not provide the project support. The project champion fulfilled
this function.
In the case of a sponsor who does not have the expected interest in the
project, if the PM can find a project champion, this might solve the problem.
If this is not possible, the PM will need to work with the sponsor to attempt
to generate the required support. In this case, the PM should allocate some
additional project management time to allow for the extra effort.
Why might the sponsor exhibit too much interest? Maybe the sponsor
was a PM, and still enjoys being involved. Maybe the sponsor has such a
strong stake in the success of the project that he believes he cannot afford to
leave it in the hands of others. Or perhaps the sponsor does not trust the skill
of the PM, so he steps into the picture to ensure his project is successful. In
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Senior Management
any of these cases, the PM will have to spend time with the sponsor to build
the required trust, and to work towards more appropriate relationships.

Once the relationship has been satisfactorily established, the sponsor can
provide all the required support for the project. The sponsor will provide the
communication to and from management bodies about the project, and to
and from the PM about corporate developments. The sponsor can be called
upon to assist with problems in obtaining the needed skills. It is the sponsor
who will be approached if there is a need for management reserve funding.
And perhaps the sponsor will need to enter into customer discussions when
agreements are difficult to obtain.
Senior management will also be involved corporately in the prioritization
of projects. It is very useful to the project team to have a spokesman in the
prioritization discussions to protect the project, and also to have someone to
share priority information with them. An project which is liable to be
targeted in executive discussion benefits from having a sponsor senior
enough to be included in the discussions. When accepting a project, the PM
should judge whether or not the designated sponsor is at the appropriate
management level to protect and support the project.
Senior management should also be involved in the definition of the
success measures for the project. Management will generally provide some
criteria that they expect to be met. These criteria should be accepted by the
team unless there is some reason that they cannot be met – in which case it is
the responsibility of the PM to let management know about the problems
early. In addition, the team should suggest any success measures that they
feel would appropriately measure success. Management should then assess
these, and either approve them, or provide reasons why they should not be
used.
In fact, before any project is even accepted, most companies work
through some sort of project selection process. The most objective way to
handle this is to have a project selection model that is based on numerical
values. Then the team making the project proposal will analyze the benefits,
and the costs, along with some of the risks the project will encounter. This

process will yield some of the success measures before the project even
begins. These models consider many factors, amongst them the potential
revenue, the potential loss or build of reputation, the return on investment,
the potential for success, the availability of needed resources, including
money, skills, etc, the potential market demand, the potential competition,
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Senior Management
the fit with corporate strategic goals, the potential risks and ability to deal
with them.
One of the key responsibilities that the sponsor should be involved with
is the project risk assessment. This does not necessarily mean that the he
works directly with the team in the risk assessment, although this could
certainly be useful to all concerned. But as the risk assessment proceeds the
sponsor should be made aware of all the potential risks, and should ensure
that the team includes enough contingency time, money and plans to ensure
project success.
Senior management will actively monitor all projects on an ongoing
basis, and may request project details from time to time when they are
needed for evaluation.