The Missing Charter Element: Sponsor Responsibilities

A project charter details the project manager’s responsibilities, but typically not the sponsor’s. Here’s why you should document sponsor responsibilities, too.

Identify who manages senior stakeholder relationships. Sometimes, senior project stakeholders don’t know the sponsor. For project success, key stakeholders need to understand and trust the sponsor and his or her motives.  The charter should define how those stakeholders will be engaged. For example, the responsibility could lie with the sponsor, a sponsorship committee, or it could be delegated to the project manager. By including high-level responsibility for stakeholder engagement in the charter, you can ensure that someone manages these crucial stakeholder relationships.

Identify how project funds are acquired. Sponsors may not have the authority to release project funds, even from their own budgets when expenses exceed a certain threshold. It’s important to understand and agree in advance on how project funds are released. You might need to work with financial managers to identify the process and specific data needed to release funds. To ensure that money is available when needed, in the project charter, document this information and process as part of the responsibilities of the sponsor and the financial managers.

Technical decisions may require consultation. Decisions regarding technical considerations may require expertise the sponsor doesn’t have. In that case, the sponsor would need to consult with technical managers to ensure the integrity of those decisions. The project charter can specify the sponsor’s and technical managers’ responsibilities revolving around those consultations.

Sponsor’s time constraints may require delegation to others. Sponsorship often falls to a high-level manager. While that gives them sweeping authority to make decisions, they might not have the time to execute all of their responsibilities. In that case, some sponsorship authority may be delegated to other managers. These delegations should be clearly stated in the project charter.  In addition, the sponsor’s level of time commitment to the project should be documented.  As a project manager, you need access to your sponsor or the sponsor’s delegates to ensure decisions can be made in a timely fashion.

For more about sponsorship, check out my Project Management Foundations course.

This post contains affiliate links, and I will be compensated if you click my links and make a purchase.