High-performing organizations are hedged on timely strategic decision-making. Every successful or failed project, every opportunity seized or missed, is the result of a decision made or not made. Good timely decisions rely heavily on good project governance. Governance provides checks and balances throughout a project life cycle, reassuring businesses that they’ve invested time and money in the right places.
In this article, we explain what exactly project governance is, the pillars on which it stands, how crucial it is for any given project, and much more.
What Is Project Governance?
Project governance is a framework within which a project progresses and decisions are made. The framework comprises policies, processes, standards, procedures, and guidelines that determine how a project is planned, executed, and managed. It offers guidance on what will happen within a project’s life cycle and when it will happen.
Project governance provides consistency that adds to the stability of your projects.
When implementing governance policies, ensure that they’re compatible with the type of projects your organization undertakes to guarantee success.
Why Project Governance Is Key to the Success of a Project
Any project—from the simplest to the most complex—will benefit from project governance. Let’s take a closer look at how project governance can impact the success of your projects.
Outlines project stakeholders’ roles, responsibilities, and relationships
Project governance defines and clearly articulates structured roles, responsibilities, and accountabilities within the project. This makes decision-making more structured and faster because everyone knows who does what.
Promotes accountability
With well-defined roles and responsibilities comes accountability. When everyone knows what they’re supposed to do, they can be accountable for their actions and contributions to the project’s success or failure.
Faster issue management and resolution
The governance framework provides directions on promptly dealing with issues or conflicts that may arise during project execution. It defines the metrics to be used to validate impacts and determine if problems need to be acted upon or not.
Project governance also defines the key contact points for addressing and approving any changes in the project requirements.
Facilitates transparent communication and prompt information dissemination
Project governance ensures that your communication plan is well defined, updated, and executed. A proper communication plan promotes transparency and helps the project manager communicate and address stakeholder expectations. Further it facilitates consistent, standardized, and transparent reporting on project progress.
Three Pillars of Project Governance
Three pillars define project governance.
1. Structure
The organization’s overall structure and business environment must support a project for it to succeed. Support means the senior management is invested in the project. They create a vision for the project before passing it on to project managers who will bring it to life.
2. People
The right people are vital to good project governance. The project manager is especially critical to a project. Senior management, therefore, must fully understand the project’s activities. This will ensure they select the right project manager and help that individual understand the project goals and the tasks needed to deliver a successful project.
3. Information
An effective project governance model requires open communication and efficient real-time information sharing. Regular, consistent reporting, meetings, and progress updates keep the project directed towards a successful end.
Key Roles in a Project Governance Framework
A project governance framework is made up of various roles.
Project sponsor
A project sponsor is a person (or sometimes a group of individuals) who owns the project. They help ensure the project is aligned with the business strategy, approve all the plans, and request any necessary changes. Most importantly, they make payment once the work is completed. A sponsor can accept or decline the delivered work if a project doesn’t meet their needs or requirements.
Resource manager
A resource manager’s role is to align available resources with strategic priorities to facilitate successful project completion. Resource managers ensure that the right resources are allocated to suitable projects.
Project manager
The project manager (PM) is responsible for the project’s day-to-day tasks, duties, and overall management. They’re in charge of executing decisions from the project sponsor and monitoring the project’s progress. Project managers are also the go-between person for the project sponsor and all the other parties involved.
Project team
The project team can be comprised of full-time employees and/or freelancers. These are the people responsible for carrying out various activities for the completion of the project.
Project stakeholders
Project stakeholders are individuals or groups directly affected by the project’s outcome. Though interested in the project’s success, stakeholders aren’t involved in the daily tasks but remain engaged throughout the project.
How to Set up a Good Project Governance Model
Follow these steps to come up with your own project governance model.
1. Identify the project stakeholders
Identify all stakeholders at the outset of the project. These can be high-level executives, employees, or third-party people related to the project. Once you identify them, make them aware of your project governance model to facilitate a successful adoption.
2. Choose which business goals to prioritize
Senior management must identify current business goals and initiatives and decide which ones to focus on.
3. Put the right processes in place
Implement an effective communication and project approval process. Develop rules and set standards that will guide stakeholders on how to work together toward completing the project.
4. Outline project roles and responsibilities
Outline all the roles and responsibilities of everyone involved in the project.
5. Communicate clearly
Communicate to all project participants about the processes involved in the project. Doing this shows that senior management has invested itself in the project governance and helps promote faster buy-in from all stakeholders.
Benefits of Project Governance
Implementing a project governance model in your project management process has some key benefits.
Deliver project on time and within budget
By facilitating effective and structured decision-making, project governance helps you deliver your projects on time and within the budget.
Guidance on which projects to focus on
As you set up your model, you’ll prioritize your business goals. This means you can strategically decide which projects are most beneficial to your organization.
Effective resource allocation
Governance prioritizes resources, ensuring that your projects are run by people capable of delivering successful projects.
Efficient stakeholder management
Proper identification of stakeholders and the appropriate communication plan ensure that stakeholders stay engaged throughout the project.
Increased success rates
Project governance implements goal setting, strategic decision-making, resource planning, and transparent communication and reporting. These factors combine to help the project succeed.
Implementing a project governance model is a huge responsibility. Project management software can help simplify things.
Use Mission Control to visualize your work, projects, and tasks with different view options such as Kanban boards and Gantt charts. Generate real-time reports and share them with senior executives to gain insight into project status and performance.
See how Mission Control can help you govern your projects better. Request a demo today.
