Sponsoring a major project: the Crossrail experience
The Major Projects Association has contributed to this joint report between the Department for Transport and the Infrastructure and Projects Authority.
The report looks at sponsorship lessons learnt from the Crossrail project and makes 9 recommendations, which will be of interest to our members.
The report notes that sponsorship is vitally important to a project and goes beyond being an administrative or funding function. It is a professional skill that depends on people with directly relevant delivery and operational experience. Most importantly, it requires the ability to ask basic questions, such as “does the project feel right?” or “is it ready for the next phase?” and then act in the right way, landing the key messages with good effect, coping with ambiguity, and managing senior stakeholder expectations in a realistic way.
The findings of the report are consistent with the findings from a study commissioned by the Major Projects Association, completed by Professor Carl Gavin from the Alliance Manchester Business School which concludes that while the role of the project sponsor is regarded as critical to project success there is a dearth of guidance or development programmes for them.