Every project management textbook will tell you how important the project sponsor is. They champion the project at senior level, support the business case, help secure resources and provide the organisational authority that the project manager simply doesn’t have.
That’s fine in theory, but anybody who has spent a few years managing real projects knows that sometimes the person whose name appears proudly against “Project Sponsor” in the documentation can become remarkably difficult to find when you actually need them.
I’m not suggesting they’ve literally disappeared, of course. They’re probably still somewhere in the organisation, and you may even catch sight of them occasionally. The problem usually starts when you need something only they can provide.
Perhaps an important decision has been sitting unanswered for a week, two departments are fighting over the same specialist resource, or a change has occurred which could affect the original business case. You send an email, mention it in your report and eventually manage to squeeze twenty minutes into their diary, only to discover that they’re dealing with six other problems and have barely looked at yours.
If you’ve ever found yourself in this situation, you’ll know how frustrating it can be, but frustration isn’t actually the biggest danger. The real problem begins when decisions that properly belong at sponsor level gradually start falling onto the project manager.
Because we’re naturally problem solvers, we tend to step into the gap, keep things moving and perhaps make decisions that we were never formally authorised to make. That may work perfectly well for a while, but sooner or later it can leave us carrying responsibility for something without having the organisational authority that should go with it.
Your Project Sponsor Is More Than a Senior Name on the Organisation Chart
I think part of the problem begins with the way some organisations appoint project sponsors. A senior manager is selected, their name is added to the project documentation and everybody assumes the sponsorship box has now been ticked.
Unfortunately, sponsorship isn’t a title; it’s a job, and an important part of that job is providing the organisational authority that you, as project manager, cannot simply create for yourself.
You may have considerable authority over the day-to-day running of the project. You can organise the work, coordinate the team, manage risks, monitor progress and make all sorts of normal project decisions. In fact, if the governance arrangements are working properly, you should have enough freedom to get on with the job without constantly running upstairs to ask permission every five minutes.
Eventually, however, something will happen that sits outside that authority.
Perhaps two senior managers both want the same specialist resource and neither intends to give way. Maybe the customer is demanding a substantial change that affects the original business case, or the project needs more money than you are authorised to spend. You may even discover that something has changed in the organisation which raises the much bigger question of whether the project should continue in its present form.
In situations like these, you can investigate the problem, explain the consequences and recommend what you believe should happen, but that doesn’t automatically mean the final decision belongs to you. This is precisely where a good sponsor earns their keep, because they can operate at an organisational level that the project manager usually cannot.
Why Good Project Managers Can Accidentally Make the Problem Worse
There’s an awkward irony here because the project managers most likely to compensate for a weak sponsor are often the capable ones. We’re used to solving problems, removing obstacles and finding ways to keep things moving, so sitting around for two weeks waiting for somebody to make a decision doesn’t come naturally.
The first time it happens, you may make a small judgement call yourself because the answer seems obvious. The next time, perhaps you negotiate directly with another department or agree a temporary compromise while you’re waiting for formal approval.
Nothing terrible happens, the team keeps working and the schedule doesn’t slip, so it feels as though you’ve done exactly what a good project manager should do.
The trouble is that this can gradually become normal. Before long you’re not simply managing the project; you’re also making decisions that properly belong somewhere else in the organisation.
You may even be making very good decisions, but that’s not really the point. If you’re taking responsibility for something without having the authority to approve it, you’re exposing both yourself and the project unnecessarily.
Everything may continue happily until one of those decisions doesn’t work out quite as planned. At that point somebody may ask the wonderfully uncomfortable question, “Who authorised this?” and suddenly the fact that your sponsor hadn’t answered three emails doesn’t provide quite as much protection as you hoped it would.
Find Out Why Your Project Sponsor Isn’t Engaging
Before deciding that you’ve simply been lumbered with a useless sponsor, I’d try to understand what’s actually happening from their side of the desk.
Senior managers often have several projects competing for attention alongside their normal operational responsibilities, and there may be problems elsewhere in the organisation that you know nothing about. Sometimes the sponsor isn’t deliberately ignoring the project at all; they simply have a completely different understanding of what sponsorship means.
I’ve met senior managers who genuinely believed that appointing a competent project manager meant they could effectively step away until something serious needed their attention.
Nobody had explained what decisions the project manager could make, what needed sponsor involvement or how the two roles were supposed to work together. Once that conversation took place, the relationship improved enormously because both people finally understood what the other expected.
That’s why I’d start with a proper conversation rather than an accusation. I wouldn’t arrive with a textbook list of seventeen sponsor responsibilities either, because you’re trying to improve the project rather than conduct a surprise examination.
Talk about the real situations you’re facing, explain where you’re comfortable making decisions yourself and identify the occasions when you’re going to need their organisational authority. If you can agree how those situations will be handled before the next crisis arrives, you’ve already removed a large part of the problem.
Make It Easy for Your Project Sponsor to Help You
Project managers can also make life unnecessarily difficult for themselves by communicating with sponsors in exactly the same way they communicate with everybody else.
Imagine your sponsor has sixty unread emails, three meetings before lunch and another business problem that’s already ruined their morning. Your twelve-page project report arrives containing everything anybody could possibly want to know, including one absolutely critical decision buried somewhere around page nine.
Technically, you’ve communicated the issue. Practically, you’ve made your sponsor work far too hard to discover that you need something from them.
If you need a decision, make that decision obvious. Explain what has happened, why it matters, what realistic choices are available and when you need an answer. If you’ve got a recommendation, give it and explain your reasoning.
You can still provide all the supporting information for somebody who wants to dig deeper, but don’t make a busy senior manager conduct an archaeological excavation through your project documentation simply to discover why you’ve contacted them.
The same principle applies when you finally get some time together. If you’ve managed to secure thirty minutes with your sponsor, don’t spend twenty-five of them reading information they could have looked at beforehand. Use that precious time to discuss the things that genuinely require their involvement.
Apart from getting better decisions, you’ll probably find your sponsor becomes more willing to meet because conversations with you actually achieve something.
Sending a Report Doesn’t Mean You’ve Communicated
There’s another version of this problem that I’ve seen many times.
An issue has been mentioned in the weekly report for perhaps six or eight weeks and eventually develops into something serious. The sponsor looks surprised and asks why nobody told them, at which point the project manager understandably wants to retrieve the previous eight reports and wave them enthusiastically in the air.
I sympathise, but unfortunately it doesn’t solve anything. There’s a difference between sending somebody information and making sure they’ve understood something important.
If an issue genuinely threatens a major commitment, the business case, an important stakeholder relationship or one of the project’s objectives, don’t rely entirely upon the fact that you’ve included it in a report. Speak to the sponsor and make sure they understand why it matters.
That doesn’t mean chasing them every time a minor risk changes colour, because part of being an experienced project manager is knowing what deserves senior attention and what doesn’t. When something really does deserve that attention, however, make sure it gets it.
Be Clear About Where Your Authority Ends
Good project governance should give you enough authority to manage the project without constantly asking permission. If every minor decision has to travel up to the sponsor and back again, the project will crawl along and both of you will become thoroughly fed up with the arrangement.
At the same time, that freedom needs boundaries.
There should be some understanding of the tolerances within which you can operate and the point at which an issue, change or decision needs to move upwards. Those boundaries don’t restrict good project management; they actually make it possible, because everybody understands who is entitled to decide what.
When something genuinely exceeds your authority, don’t quietly absorb the decision simply because getting hold of your sponsor is inconvenient. Explain what decision is required, why it sits outside your authority and what will happen if it isn’t made in time. That’s not avoiding responsibility. Quite the opposite: you’re making sure the organisation understands what the project needs and who needs to provide it.
A professional project manager doesn’t demonstrate their value by personally making every decision that crosses their desk. Sometimes the most professional thing you can do is recognise that a decision belongs somewhere else and make sure it reaches the person who has the authority to make it.
When Your Project Sponsor Still Won’t Engage
Suppose you’ve done all of this. You’ve spoken to the sponsor, clarified what you need, stopped burying important decisions inside enormous reports and tried to make sensible use of the limited time they give you, yet you’re still getting nowhere. At that point I’d stop treating the situation simply as an awkward relationship and start considering what it means for the project itself.
If important decisions are being delayed, resources can’t be secured, senior stakeholder problems remain unresolved or significant changes aren’t being properly governed, then ineffective sponsorship has become a genuine project risk.
That’s the language I’d use, because we’re no longer complaining about an individual; we’re identifying something that could prevent the project from achieving its objectives.
I certainly wouldn’t write “Sponsor is useless” in the risk register, tempting though that might occasionally feel. Describe the consequence instead.
Perhaps delayed senior decisions are beginning to threaten the schedule, or unresolved competition for specialist resources could affect an important milestone. Maybe a change in the business environment requires a decision about the continued viability of the business case and nobody is making it.
Once you describe the situation that way, you’ve moved the conversation away from personalities and back where it belongs: onto the project and what needs to happen to protect it.
Don’t Let the Project Quietly Drift While Everybody Waits
One of the most dangerous things about weak sponsorship is that it doesn’t always create an immediate crisis. Quite often the opposite happens.
A decision gets postponed for a week, so the team finds a workaround. Another week passes and somebody makes a sensible assumption to keep things moving. The temporary arrangement works reasonably well, everybody gets used to it and eventually nobody can quite remember whether it was ever formally approved.
Six weeks later, the project has quietly moved into territory that nobody consciously decided to enter.
As project manager, you still need to keep the team moving wherever it’s sensible and within your authority to do so. There’s no value in stopping everything simply to make a point, but temporary workarounds shouldn’t gradually become permanent governance because nobody wants to confront the missing decision.
Sometimes the most useful thing you can do is make the consequence of continued indecision visible.
If a decision isn’t made by a particular date, perhaps an activity will need to move, a specialist resource will no longer be available or an important commitment can no longer be guaranteed. Explaining that calmly isn’t threatening your sponsor; it’s giving them the information they need to understand what delaying the decision actually means.
What a Good Project Sponsor Should Really Give You
I’ve worked with some excellent senior managers over the years, and the best sponsors I’ve encountered didn’t try to manage the project for me. In fact, the opposite was normally true. They gave me room to manage because we both understood where my authority started and stopped, and I knew that when I brought something genuinely important to them, they would pay attention.
That’s really the relationship we’re aiming for. You don’t need your sponsor sitting beside you every day and becoming involved in every project decision. In fact, I’d probably start worrying if they did. You need somebody who understands enough about the project to recognise what matters, who is available when their organisational authority is required and who is willing to make the decisions that properly belong to them.
When that relationship works well, the project manager can concentrate on managing delivery while the sponsor helps maintain the organisational conditions that make successful delivery possible. Neither person is trying to do the other’s job, and neither has to.
What to Do When Your Project Sponsor Is Missing
If you’re struggling with an absent sponsor right now, I wouldn’t begin by sending them another enormous report and hoping this one somehow gets their attention. I’d start by having a proper conversation about how the two of you need to work together, making it clear where you’re comfortable making decisions yourself and where you’re going to need their authority.
From there, make it as easy as possible for them to help you. When you need a decision, explain the issue clearly, show the consequences and give them realistic choices rather than simply throwing a problem over the fence. If engagement still doesn’t improve, look at what that means for the project and manage the consequences through the governance arrangements available to you.
Most importantly, resist the temptation to quietly become the sponsor yourself. A capable project manager can compensate for weak sponsorship for quite a long time, which is precisely why this problem can creep up unnoticed. What you cannot do is manufacture organisational authority that hasn’t been delegated to you, and you shouldn’t end up carrying accountability for decisions that properly belong somewhere else.
Knowing when to solve a problem yourself and when to push it upwards is part of the judgement that comes with becoming a really good project manager.
Project Management Is About Judgement as Well as Process
Project management qualifications quite rightly teach us processes, tools, techniques, roles and responsibilities. I’ve spent a large part of my career teaching exactly those things, so I’m hardly going to argue against them. The difficulty is that real projects have an annoying habit of refusing to behave as neatly as the diagrams in the textbooks.
People get busy, priorities change, sponsors disappear into other organisational problems and stakeholders behave in ways nobody predicted when the project documentation was written. That’s when simply knowing the theory isn’t quite enough.
You need the confidence to recognise what’s happening, understand where your responsibility ends and work out how to deal with the situation without either abandoning the problem or taking authority you don’t actually possess.
That’s the sort of practical project management thinking I try to build into my training at Projex Academy. Whether you’re preparing for PMP, APM PMQ or simply trying to become a stronger practising project manager, understanding the framework is only the beginning.
The real skill is knowing how to use it when the real world refuses to follow it.
