SIDEBAR: How to Sponsor Da Project

In "Vital Signs" a CIO provides a checklist to help business sponsors ask the right questions about IT projects.

sidebar: When Steering Committees Don't Steer

Steering committees don't always hear about the problems with a project

By Michael Patterson and Patricia Pruden

The project team reports positive progress. Again. But wasn't a major milestone expected about now? There was no mention of it on today's agenda. Your past project experiences and your instinct say nothing can go this smoothly, but asking questions extends the meeting, and you simply don't have the time. You'll try to remember to ask your project team representative for an unadulterated project update, but later. The meeting is dismissed with no tough questions. The steering committee members move on; the project team concludes that the meeting went well.

Sound like a steering committee meeting that you've attended? The temptation for disengagement is real.

But it is the steering committee's responsibility to help the project team meet its goals - breaking gridlock, removing obstacles and anticipating risks. Steering committee members should question major project decisions, using organizational knowledge and political power where necessary. In short, a steering committee should help the project team do the following:

Avoid anecdotal disguises. Qualitative, anecdotal messages enable project leaders to disguise the challenges. Encourage concise, quantitative, fact-based reports supported by specific examples. Require measurements that accurately gauge project progress.

Avoid segregation. The project team and steering committee are both responsible for the completion of a successful project. This unifying goal will level some traditional boundaries, requiring the project team to assign action items to the steering committee members. The project team must monitor the steering committee's progress, keeping each member accountable through completion. These action items should be unique to the steering committee member's position and areas of influence.

Avoid turf wars. The process of developing lucid and objective scope agreements often exposes the competing, yet natural, agendas of each steering committee member. Since it is unrealistic to assume that there would be peer-to-peer discussions in this area, push the project manager's negotiation and mediation skills to work through these political issues.

You can build a constructive working relationship between a steering committee and project team en route, working with the receptive individuals who will bring the others along. Socialization is very important, as is proactively addressing the possible reasons for disengagement: Are updates too technical? Are we hearing the same excuses? Have we created a culture where the only news is good news?

Reinforce through actions the message that the best presentations to the steering committee will balance the technical and business project matters, using clear business language. No acronyms. No buzzwords. Coach the technical person to give his update by linking the technical issues back to its impact on business operations.

The steering committee can recharge a stalled project by focusing on the project facts and respecting the process in play. Be specific about the information requested. Be specific about what you are asking the project team to do. And the project team members should be explicit about what they are asking the steering committee to do. Build a common understanding about roles and responsibilities, holding individuals to those expectations. If a deadline is missed, encourage second-guessing, but make sure the findings are used constructively. Why did this happen? Was this not planned for? Will we experience this again? But a word of caution: Watch motives. Are we trying to get someone in trouble? Or are we asking questions so that we, and the others, are informed? Keep the personality issues out of the group meetings and handle those individually.

It may be counterintuitive, but the steering committee and project team will drift apart when things go well and draw contentiously together when there are problems. This normal project life cycle welcomes the teamwork necessary to meet a common goal. The steering committee and the project team must both do the following:

Get engaged. The steering committee must be inquisitive, looking for ways to help, while the project team must be planning contingencies, offering the best recommendations and requesting assistance from the steering committee as needed. In an extreme situation, if a steering committee member doesn't have the time to understand the details, empower a representative to work with the project team.

Set high standards. The steering committee must demand milestone performance from the project team while simultaneously showing where their help will make that possible. Demand clear information, open dialogue, respect for the facts, as well as written expectations and responsibilities for both the steering committee and project team in a standing section of project reports.

Strike a balance. A balanced presentation of the facts will help the steering committee know what decisions need to be made and what interference needs to be run. The project team members need to know they can come in with facts, even if it's bad news. Avoid focusing exclusively on one project part, like budgets or deadlines. Contain the emotional issues within a specific portion of the agenda. To avoid micromanagement, individual attention outside group meetings can dramatically reduce deep-sea dives into specific issues.

A good team and clear direction can overcome the perils of steering committee and project team relations, while enabling the successful delivery of your project.

Michael Patterson and Patricia Pruden founded Patterson Pruden LLC, drawing upon years of major project experience to focus exclusively on the turnaround of challenged projects