Managing your Steering Committee
October 19, 2009 @ Better Projects from Craig Brown
Two key pieces of information that I took away from the post are that Boards will share better if they think they are solving some kind of factual issue as opposed to making a judgement requiring consensus.
Boards share information better if they use a structured discussion process, rather than just indulging in the usual kind of spontaneous conversation.
The idea here is that Boards need to be actively engaged in managing things. For me and you it is our project steering committees and governance groups. How do we get them more involved in the project?
By making board members participate in certain decisions they 'own' the solution more than if they just front up and rubber stamp a progress report.
Every report on project success or failure includes mention of close customer engagement as a key success factor. Frontline managers are not the customer. The sponsor and steering committees are much better embodiments of the customer, as they are the ones paying for the product your project is delivering. Getting your board members involved is a step in the right direction.
In order to help boards collaborate more, Tim endorses a McKinsey recommendation to augment proposals and recommendations with a 'red report' or the counter argument to the actual recommendation.
This is a common approach used in project management: the infamous 'three options' including or augmented with the "do nothing" option. Depending on the time and relationship you have with your board/sponsor, and the importance of your project what can you do to get them more involved in your next board (or steering committee) meeting?
This article is syndicated from Better Projects . The original article is available here. Read more in Better Projects, Project Management News .
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