Blog: Steering Projects Home

Quiz your project manager and your project steering committee about the roots of project steering committee problems and it's likely to rapidly become clear that the two see the project management process through very different eyes.

But take a look at the issues likely to be canvassed by both sides and you stand a good chance of seeing the emergence of a common theme: Its lack of clarity regarding the role of the project steering committee which is harming many projects, according to a new Management Briefing Paper from IBRS.

It's become commonplace to sheet the cause of IT project failure home to lack of senior management ownership and leadership. (And what could be fairer? That way everyone at the top can share a piece of the blame.) For instance Butler Group released a study last year clearly demonstrating how most organizations are failing when it comes to effective IT governance - a failure which is in turn "perpetuating the chronic failure rate of IT-enabled business projects, and seriously impairing the achievement of business value". Butler's research shows most IT governance initiatives are deployed solely within the IT department and take little or no account of broader requirements of alignment with business objectives. The result is lack of coordination between the IT-led elements of projects and management of the associated business change.

Butler Group notes that other effects of poor IT governance include increased costs due to the inefficiencies of short-term, tactical IT deployments, unproductive use of human resources and IT assets, and the potential risk of breaching data security and regulatory compliance requirements.

What the IBRS research shows is that this failure of leadership frequently manifests first in problems in the deliberations of the project's steering committee.

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In project managers' eyes, IBRS can confirm, project steering committee problems relate mostly to:

• Excessive bureaucracy which impacts on the productivity of project resources and delays decision making;
• Micro-management which draws the steering committee away from the governance issues that it should be addressing and undermines the authority of the project manager;
• A focus on operational issues rather than issues relating to providing guidance and direction to the project manager;
• An excessive focus on corporate politics such that the steering committee may fail to provide support to the project manager charged with making tough project related decisions.

The steering committees see the issues rather differently, saying:

• Committee members are often unclear as to what their roles should be;
• They complain that they have had no training or support to undertake the responsibilities associated with membership of their committee;
• Project managers fail to provide project status reports that would help the steering committee to identify issues that require their attention; and
• Some project managers opt to provide only "good news" to their steering committees while they struggle to overcome issues which the steering committee could provide advice and assistance with.

The answer to making the steering committee process work, IBRS suggests, is to seek complete agreement among the committee members and other senior executives within the organization regarding its role.

And you can help things along a lot if you hold a kick off session before the first formal committee meeting attended by all committee members, the project manager and someone with experience in the efficient operation of such committees who can address the session. Use the session to secure agreement on the committee's role and modus operandi, the desired business benefits and how those will be measured, and other issues affecting the committee's operation and you may just find smoother sailing for even the riskiest of projects.