Define the sponsor's accountabilities across the project life cycle distinct from the project manager's role.
Project Management
Project Sponsorship and Steering Committee Decision-Making
Trains executive sponsors and steering committee members to make timely, well-evidenced project decisions and hold delivery teams to account without micromanaging.
🗓️Duration5 training days
📚Content4 modules · 8 sessions
🎓On completionAccredited attendance certificate
About the programme
Course Overview
Projects rarely fail because a steering committee lacked information; they fail because the committee had the information and still delayed a decision, deferred to the project manager on a call that was theirs to make, or approved a status report nobody had actually challenged. This course is written for the executives who sponsor projects and sit on steering committees, not for the project managers who report to them. It treats sponsorship as an active role with defined accountabilities, not an honorary title attached to a senior name. Participants learn what a sponsor is actually accountable for across the life of a project, from championing the business case and securing resources to owning benefits after delivery, and how that differs from the project manager's accountability for delivering outputs. The course works through how to chair a steering committee so it makes real decisions rather than receiving reports, how to interrogate a RAG status that has been amber for months without becoming red, and how to use escalation routes so problems reach the board while they are still solvable. Case-based exercises put participants in the sponsor's chair for a project in difficulty, deciding whether to fund a recovery plan, escalate to a higher authority, or stop the project, and require them to justify the decision to a wider governance body afterwards.
Expected Learning Outcomes
Chair a steering committee meeting that produces documented decisions rather than status updates alone.
Interrogate project status reporting to test whether a persistent amber rating reflects the real position.
Use escalation routes to raise issues to the board while options for recovery still exist.
Evaluate options to continue, recover, pause or stop a troubled project using consistent decision criteria.
Hold the project manager to account for delivery while retaining accountability for the business case and benefits.
Communicate steering committee decisions clearly to the wider organisation and delivery team.
Who Should Attend
Executives newly appointed as sponsors of significant projects or programmes
Steering committee and project board members from business functions outside project management
Senior managers who chair or sit on governance boards for capital or change investments
Project and programme managers who need to understand and manage their sponsor relationship
PMO leads designing governance structures and escalation routes for project portfolios
Non-executive directors and audit committee members overseeing significant project investment
Course Modules
Select any module to see its sessions and points.
01The Sponsor's Accountabilities Across the Project Life Cycle
2 sessions · 8 points
Session 1Distinguishing Sponsorship from Project Management
- Separate the sponsor's accountability for the business case and benefits from the project manager's accountability for outputs.
- Identify decisions that must be taken by the sponsor personally and cannot be delegated to the project team.
- Recognise when a sponsor is drifting into managing the project directly instead of governing its delivery.
- Set expectations with the project manager at the outset about reporting frequency, format and escalation thresholds.
Session 2Championing the Business Case Through Delivery
- Defend the business case to other stakeholders when competing priorities threaten funding or resourcing.
- Track whether assumptions underpinning the original business case still hold as the project progresses.
- Retain personal accountability for benefits realisation after the project delivers its outputs and closes.
- Represent the project's interests at a level in the organisation the project manager cannot reach alone.
02Chairing a Steering Committee That Decides
2 sessions · 8 points
Session 1Structuring Meetings Around Decisions, Not Status
- Set an agenda that names the decisions required rather than simply working through a status report line by line.
- Require papers that state a clear recommendation and the information needed to approve or reject it.
- Time-box status updates so the meeting's attention goes to decisions and risks rather than routine progress.
- Record decisions and actions with owners and dates so the committee's authority translates into real movement.
Session 2Interrogating Status Reports and Persistent Risk
- Ask for the evidence behind a RAG rating rather than accepting the colour as reported by the project team.
- Probe a status that has remained amber over several meetings to test whether recovery action is actually working.
- Compare reported progress against independent indicators such as spend, milestone evidence or third-party assurance.
- Challenge optimistic forecasts by asking what would have to be true for the current plan to succeed.
03Escalation and Difficult Decisions
2 sessions · 8 points
Session 1Using Escalation Routes While Options Still Exist
- Define escalation thresholds in advance so raising an issue is a routine governance step, not an admission of failure.
- Encourage project managers to escalate early by responding constructively rather than penalising bad news.
- Route escalations to the level of authority that can actually resolve them rather than the next meeting on the calendar.
- Track escalated issues to resolution rather than letting them recur without a documented outcome.
Session 2Deciding to Continue, Recover, Pause or Stop
- Apply consistent criteria, covering benefits, cost to complete and risk, when deciding a troubled project's future.
- Evaluate a recovery plan for realism before approving further funding on the strength of its promises alone.
- Recognise sunk cost reasoning when it appears in a recommendation to continue an underperforming project.
- Make the decision to stop a project when the evidence supports it, and document the reasoning for later review.
04Communicating and Sustaining Governance
2 sessions · 8 points
Session 1Communicating Decisions to the Organisation
- Translate steering committee decisions into clear direction the project team can act on without ambiguity.
- Explain difficult decisions, such as scope reduction or budget increase, to stakeholders outside the committee.
- Coordinate messaging with the project manager so the organisation hears one consistent account of a decision.
- Update the business case and reporting baseline promptly once a significant governance decision has been made.
Session 2Sustaining Effective Governance Over Time
- Review the steering committee's own membership and terms of reference as the project moves through its life cycle.
- Guard against governance fatigue by keeping meetings focused and avoiding unnecessary or repetitive papers.
- Build sponsor capability across the organisation rather than relying on a small pool of experienced individuals.
- Capture governance lessons at project closure to improve how future steering committees are run.
What the participant receives
4 course modules
A structured syllabus
8 training sessions
across 5 days
32 detailed points
Applied, detailed content
Accredited attendance certificate
On completing the programme
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