Dealing with a Weak Sponsor/Sponsorship

In this podcast, Ricardo talks about when a project has sponsorship issues. He explains how to proceed in two scenarios: when there is a sponsor with little interest in the project or when the sponsor does not have enough power to fulfill his role.

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Episode transcript

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Hello, everyone. Welcome to the five minutes BM podcast today. I like to talk about the Weak Sponsor and to understand a little bit more about the week Sponsor we need to understand the role of the sponsor. Their role of the Sponsor is to support the project. It's someone that makes the project happen to have someone that helps to solve all the political aspects. If someone to support you one, the negotiations of the work. So this is all about the concept of this Sponsorship.

And when we talk about the week's sponsor, you may have two different thoughts on that. The first one, you have a Weak Sponsorship because you have someone that lacks support. So with someone that did not buy in the project in the way you wanted, so how you should precede with this kind of case. The first thing you need to do is to understand why, why I'm lacking have proper Sponsorship maybe, Hey, it's a problem with my business case.

Maybe that person does not believe on the results of the project. So I need to understand this because I cannot survive. We for Weak Sponsorship. So I need to understand, maybe I need to understand what has happening with the scope of this project. Maybe the benefits and not so clear in the order site, we have the Weak Sponsor what does a week Sponsor is someone that gives you support is someone that is closed to you, but it's, Weak, it's someone that the, in the context of the organization is extremely weak.

So its someone that even looking forward to support you, his son, and one that could not exercise size. This is a Sponsorship because it's not respected in the organization. And for example, maybe you may think, okay, I'm looking, my sponsor is a director of the organization, but being a director does not mean being strong enough to sponsor your project. In this second case, it's not a matter of discuss why revisit the business case because in the first case you have someone that does not provide support to you in this case, this will work.

But think of this second case, you don't need to sell to the Sponsor day idea because the Sponsor has already given you a support. The problems is that this is Sponsor it's not effective around organization. So what do you need to do? My recommendation to you is that you start looking two informal is Sponsorship. What is, this is to look for other senior people that can informally support you on doing your own work. So it's a one that it's not on the paper.

It's not in the business case, but if someone that you know, that informally is very proactive supporting the project. So in how do you find the people you need to do your stakeholder mapping. If you see someone that has power, even informal power that can buy in your idea and support your soul, don't have myopia of looking that only your form of Sponsor can be the real Sponsor. You need to understand that if you look for improving your network, in order to obtain in formal Sponsorship in formal buying, you can increase the chances of success.

And the bottom line I want you to keep in your mind is Weak is that if you have a problem with Sponsor, you are on the halfway to failure with your project. This is an extremely strong statement I'm making too. You think a lot of about how to get proper Sponsorship or your wife is your project will not happen. Your project will not deliver. The suspected result is that you plan it while doing the business case. And I can tell you for personal reasons, one of the toughest time for you as a project manager is to work in a project where you have lack of Sponsorship off a Weak Sponsor think about that and see you next week with another five minutes, be on podcasts.

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