The project sponsor that wouldn't
Every so often I get a prospect with an interesting project who does not want to be all that involved in the project life cycle. By "all that involved" I actually mean "involved as little as possible".
Often times they cite things to the effect of "but you're the expert in this field". While this may be correct, my rebuttal is always "but YOU'RE the expert in YOUR BUSINESS".
A project's success is often measured by it's outcome (weird huh?), and if it is driven by someone who knows not too much about the business, the outcome can be disastrous.
The project sponsor on the business side is the business expert and the IT consultant is the technical expert. It takes a highly collaborative process to engineer an outcome which is both viable from a business sense and workable from a technical standpoint.
If you're sponsoring a high-budget project and basing your future career on it's outcome, wouldn't you want to be involved? Not only involved in the planning and design phase of the project, but at every step of the way.
Your project team can give you daily progress reports with key performance indicators which would allow you to adapt and make decisions about the project daily and in real-time to ensure the successful completion, financial viability, and end-acceptance of the project deliverables.
I realize that for some project sponsors, the IT and web fields are out of their comfort zones, but that's no reason to avoid contact.
Roll up your sleeves. Get involved.
Together we work best.
-Andreas
Posted: 2009-06-04 16:33:38
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