Project Governance Or Free For All?

The project manager was very disappointed. He had in his words sweated to deliver the project on time, to budget and with the right results. He was so disconcerted with the company that he found another job. He resigned and went to work with a company who in his words 'put energy and effort into having structured project governance' rather than a 'free for all' as he described it. Yes, his projects was business critical, yes it had an agreed budget, and yes, resources were allocated to ensure delivery. But, when you examined the overall monitoring and control processes you saw nothing but problems: o there were 2 project sponsors or rather it was not clear who the project sponsor was o the project manager spent a lot of time preparing reports to 3 internal committees. Each committee wanted a different type of report. The project manager estimated he spent 20% of his time preparing reports and attending meetings o the project manager pointed out the high risk profile saying it was high because of too little project accountability and project meetings which added no real value o senior managers kept changing the project. The project manager asked for change request forms to be completed, only to be told "get on with it" This is part of a story of a project that failed to deliver. It led to: o loss of staff; the project manager leaving o poor staff morale; according to the project manager those on the project team were de-motivated and stakeholders were extremely confused as to what the project was trying to achieve o arguments among senior managers as to why the project was not progressing as it should be doing. The key issue for this and all projects is that they needed a governance approach to support the project not work against it. What do I mean by project governance? Put simply it defines accountabilities and responsibilities for decision-making at a strategic level or project level. The problem here, as I am sure you can see, is that there were few, if any, accountabilities defined. This was a key business project with a big budget but few if anyone had overall responsibility for monitoring and controlling what was being delivered. The project manager took his responsibility very seriously. Few others did the same. This is one story; unfortunately, there are many all too similar! Will you or your company add to this growing list or, will you define project accountabilities and responsibilities for effective decision making leaving you with an effective monitoring and control (governance) process.