Training Sponsors

ByElizabeth Harrin Last updated: Stakeholders

Neville Turbit from Project Perfect has recently given me some material for a great case study for my forthcoming book on training your sponsor. He’s covered the same topic on his blog recently too, and it’s good advice.

The sponsor one of my projects has recently changed, so I’ll be moving into ‘training’ mode too: working out if she’s sponsored projects before, explaining her role on this one and what I expect from a sponsor, answering her questions about the project and bringing her up to speed. Normally I produce a crib sheet of the history of the project so far, on just one page of A4, drawing a timeline on which I mark key decision dates and project milestones, as well as future events. Fortunately there are no major decisions for her to take at the moment, but there are a few politically sensitive issues that I’ll need to be tactful when I explain.

Fortunately, she seems very switched on and although she’s new to the organisation I think she’ll do a good job. I think she will be easy to work with too, and I feel we connect on a professional level: practising batting my eyelids was essential preparation for a steering group meeting for one sponsor I worked with in a previous job, so at least I’ll be spared that.

Elizabeth Harrin wearing a pink scarf

Project manager, author, mentor

Elizabeth Harrin is a Fellow of the Association for Project Management in the UK. She holds degrees from the University of York and Roehampton University, and several project management certifications including APM PMQ. She first took her PRINCE2 Practitioner exam in 2004 and has worked extensively in project delivery for over 20 years.
Elizabeth is also the founder of the Project Management Rebels community, a mentoring group for professionals. She's written several books for project managers including Managing Multiple Projects.