Senior Management are Accountable for Project Success

I’ve come to expect it by the end of the first project management training day. The enthusiastic project manager’s hand goes up and I’m asked “this is all good stuff, but does our senior management know what their project management responsibilities are”? Not always.

So here are five of the key areas of project management that busy senior managers need to know about. For this article, senior management is that level of management above the project manager responsible for running the business, and invoking those changes that enable the sustainability of their organization’s survival. These areas originate from the PRINCE2® method, but apply to all projects regardless of the methodology applied.

Firstly senior management must ensure that their organization applies some degree of portfolio management. As a minimum a central view of all projects and programmes must be in place, and projects must be selected based on criteria like benefits, risk profile, strategic alignment and resource usage. In addition projects must be prioritized according to these same criteria, understanding that if senior management don’t prioritize then junior staff will, by working on what they like doing, whom they wish to please, or which project manager is shouting the loudest.

Senior management must ensure that their projects are justified. I.e. each project must produce a strategically aligned output within an acceptable risk profile that adds a measurable value greater than the cost. This must be done at the start of a project, and reviewed as an ongoing activity, possibly leading to the sensible premature close of some projects.

Senior management must take overall accountability for project success, and must create a temporary project structure with defined job descriptions for the steering committee/project board members, project manager and other resources of the project team. Of course senior management have responsibilities that extend beyond the project arena, rarely affording them the time to deal with the details of every project they oversee, so they need to ensure that they are not bothered by minor events. They must delegate effectively and encourage a “manage by exception” approach that defines the authority levels and boundaries that the project manager must operate in, and the rules for escalating issues that may exceed those boundaries.

Senior management must make decisions. This means establishing an appropriate project governance and control framework that provides them with the right level of information to monitor progress and make appropriate corrective decisions. This includes the allocation of additional resources as required. Setting up such a framework for every project is time consuming, so executives must ensure that their organization has adopted or developed an appropriate and flexible project methodology (like PRINCE2®) that supports the project manager in her day to day management of the project, as well as providing senior management with decision supporting information and controls.

Senior Management must support the project manager. By appointing a trained project manager who is sufficiently experienced for the scale and complexity of the project involved, and then ensuring that everyone knows that she carries the executive’s delegated authority. Decisions and sign offs should be promptly attended to, feedback and guidance given, senior stakeholders communicated with and cross functional issues sorted out.  Formal project review meetings should be chaired by the executive.

The role of senior management in projects is a crucial one that if carried out effectively will enable most organizations to mature their project management maturity and improve their capability to deliver against their strategy.

But unlike project managers who over the last 10 years have had access to formalized training and rigorous certification schemes, senior management have little guidance in project management best practice. That is until the Office of Government Commerce released their Directing Successful Projects with PRINCE2™ manual last year. It is a concise manual designed for the busy executive of any organization that describes the role and functions of senior management in projects.

So, going back to my first sentence, I hope I will soon be able to reply “yes, of course senior management know what their project management responsibilities are, in fact your executive attended my Directing Successful Projects half day event last week!”

About Guy Eastoe

Guy Eastoe is the MD and lead consultant at Snap Tech (Pty) Ltd. He brought PRINCE2™ and Managing Successful Programmes (MSP™) to South Africa, followed up with the P3M3 maturity assessment framework and the Portfolio, Programme and Project Office model (P3O®).

Snap Tech has been consulting and training in these best practice approaches for nearly 10 years.

 “PRINCE2® is a Registered Trade Mark of the Office of Government Commerce United Kingdom and other countries”