Business sponsor translation service

Photo credit: Jason Leung via Unsplash

It’s tough being the business sponsor of a technology initiative. You want to achieve an outcome; you are responsible for achieving that outcome; it’s your budget that is being spent; and you will be judged on the result. But you are dependent on people you don’t know, concepts that you don’t understand, products that you may never even see, and suppliers that you have never met.

Given how tough the job is, it seems like a good idea not to make it any tougher. However, because business sponsors are rarely experts in technology, they often accidentally make their jobs tougher without realising – sometimes just by saying a few words. Because business sponsors are senior leaders, the things they say have consequences: they prompt the people around them to take action. And, if the sponsor says the wrong things, those actions will be counter-productive.

Here are a few sentences which I have heard business sponsors say, what I think they mean, how others hear them, and their consequences – along with possible alternatives.

‘Have we challenged the estimates?’

Context: usually said at the beginning of a project, when the forecast costs are higher than expected – and much higher than the sponsor wants them to be.

The sponsor means: do we really need to spend all this money? Can’t we get back within the budget?

The PMO hears: run a process to review all the technology teams’ estimates, and force them to reduce their costs.

The technology team hears: here we go again – a bunch of people with no technical skills reviewing plans that they don’t understand and asking us to cut out essential work.

Consequences: the sponsor gets a plan which seems to be within budget – until the work actually starts. The technology team feels that they are not trusted, and their expertise and professional judgement is not valued – so they’d better pad their estimates in future to protect themselves. The seeds of conflict and disappointment have been sown, right at the beginning of the work.

Alternative: ‘Can you walk me through the plan and show me where I have choices? You’ll need to explain the details to me.’

‘I want a regular report on the status of this task.’

Context: usually said partway through the project when a particular piece of work is running late – and keeps getting later.

The sponsor means: I don’t understand what the problem is, and I feel powerless to fix it. At least if I have visibility, then I might feel as if I have some sort of control.

The PMO hears: impose another layer of reporting and schedule an agenda item on the weekly progress meeting to review it.

The technology team hears: we’re going to have spend more time reporting and explaining ourselves than actually doing the work – and the people who get the reports will do nothing to help us. Best make them look green-but-not-too-green to minimise interference.

Consequences: every time the project hits problems (and projects always hit problems), the reporting burden grows, until the primary output of the project is an ever thicker slide deck.

Alternative: ‘What’s actually getting in the way of progress? Is there something I can do that will make a difference? Can I make a decision on scope, to remove the problem, or do I just need to stay out of the way until it is fixed?’

‘I’m glad this is nearly over.’

Context: the project is over-running, the budget has been exceeded, the scope has been cut and the team is exhausted. But the end is in sight.

The sponsor means: I’m glad this is nearly over.

The PMO hears: time to start looking for the next project to work on.

The technology team hears: we’re not going to get the opportunity to deal with the mountain of technical debt we have accumulated. This solution needs a persistent product team, but we’re winding back to maintenance mode. Better find something new rather than get left behind with this mess.

Consequences: victory is (somehow) declared, the project is shut down, and the solution immediately enters a cycle of neglect and decay – until it is so bad that it needs emergency repair.

Alternatives: ‘I’m glad that this part of the work is nearly over. We’ve got a lot to learn from how we organised ourselves and treated each other. What’s next and how can we do it differently?’

These examples are, of course, caricatures, and cynical ones at that. But they are intended to show how cynicism is often built into the pronouncements of sponsors – even inadvertently. If you don’t understand the work that people are doing for you, it is easy to characterise them as lazy, unreliable and untrustworthy – even if you would never use precisely those words.

Understanding breeds respect, and respect makes for better delivery. Sponsors that think about what they say get better outcomes.