Introduction

All projects need an executive sponsor.  Upper management support for projects consistently surfaces as a critical success factor.  However, organizations often do not spend the time and money to understand what sponsorship is, why doing it better is important, and how to improve. Please join us in this workshop to experience the possibilities for excellence in sponsorship within your organization.

Project Sponsorship is a two day workshop that offers participants the opportunity to create an environment that achieves greater project prosperity as a result of excellence in project sponsorship.  It may also be offered as a half day Executive Briefing.

The primary audience for this workshop is upper managers and executives.  This workshop provides you with the knowledge, tools and practices to be an effective sponsor. Get clear understanding about your roles and responsibilities to ensure that all projects achieve successful outcomes. Another audience is project managers who work with sponsors on a regular basis and seek a better outcome from this interaction. The ideal audience is project manager and sponsor attending the workshop together. Learn together and prepare joint action plans. 

Assessment

Complete the Sponsor Evaluation Tool to assess the state of project sponsorship in your organization.  When done, print the document for reference and Submit the document to record your scores via email and receive benchmarking data back about how you compare to other organizations.  Use the data together with the Project Sponsorship book to develop an action plan to develop more effective sponsorship.

Workshop as Opportunity

This is a great opportunity to interact with two international experts in the organizational, behavioral, business, and technical aspects of project management. Randall Englund is the co-author of Creating an Environment for Successful Projects and Creating the Project Office.  Alfonso Bucero is the author of A New Vision of Project Management.  Together, Englund and Bucero co-authored Project Sponsorship:  Achieving Management Commitment for Project Success (2006).  You also have the opportunity to network and share experiences with other executives and senior project managers.

Who Should Attend?

All managers and executives involved in sponsoring projects, either currently or in the near future, PMO managers, senior project managers, and other stakeholders interested in experiencing a multi-media, transformational approach to the topic of effective sponsorship, in order to greater results from projects.

Workshop Purpose

·    Understand what sponsorship is all about

·    Define how sponsors impact project success

·    Discover how to obtain the right sponsor

·    Identify what sponsors need to know and “teach the old dog new tricks”

·    Keep sponsors involved

·    Extract learnings from case study examples

·    Reap benefits from effective communications

·    Make organizational culture work for you

·    Explore the power of feedback

·    Achieve excellence in project sponsorship

Workshop Content

Introduction

·    Why sponsorship is necessary?

·    What’s the value?

Sponsor Responsibilities

·    Definition, objectives

·    Problem escalation

·    Asking questions

Obtaining a Sponsor

·    Criteria

·    Negotiation

·    The sales process

Sustaining Sponsorship

·    Proactivity

·    Support/interference

·    Reviews

Relationship with Others

·    Steering Committees

·    The culture

·    Clients

·    A Balanced Scorecard

·    Execution and feedback

Sponsorship Development

·    Positioning

·    Curriculum

·    Example

Conclusions

Where to Find Us:

Alfonso and Randy present a two day seminar on "Achieving Management Commitment for Project Success" for the PMI Global Congress EMEA 2010 in Milan, Italy on May 13-14.

The Facilitators

Alfonso Bucero, MSc, PMP (Project Management Professional). He is an independent consultant and a frequent speaker at multinational Project Management Congresses. He is the founder, partner and director of BUCERO PM Consulting in Spain.  Alfonso authored the book Project Management – A New Vision, and he was a contributor to the book Creating the Project Office, published by Jossey Bass (2003) and authored by Randall L. Englund, Robert J. Graham and Paul C. Dinsmore. Drawing from many years as an HP project manager, he has presented and written numerous papers in the project management field. He is a Contributing Editor of PM Network (Project Management Institute). He co-authored with Randall L. Englund the book Project Sponsorship, published in April 2006.

You can reach Alfonso at: alfonso.bucero@abucero.com and at www.abucero.com. 

Randall L. Englund, MBA, NPDP, CBM.  He was a senior project manager at the Project Management Initiative at HP, a Project Office leading the continuous improvement of project management across the company   He co-authored with Dr. Robert J. Graham the book Creating an Environment for Successful Projects: Second Edition (Jossey-Bass, 2004).  As the Englund Project Management Consultancy, he is an independent consultant who trains and prepares executives and teams on project culture.  He is a frequent speaker and facilitator of professional events. He is co author with Dr. Robert J. Graham and Paul Dinsmore of Creating the Project Office: a Manager’s Guide to Leading Organizational Change. He co-authored with Alfonso Bucero the book Project Sponsorship: Achieving Management Commitment for Project Success (Jossey-Bass, 2006).

You can reach Randy at: englundr@pacbell.net and on the web at www.englundpmc.com.