The Project Director / Manager Governance

Most certified project managers know about project governance. However, some of them would have different understanding of their liability when a project doomed as failed.

For the experienced project managers, when they take over a project, they will ask about the used project’s governance model. Usually, the relevant department will give the governance system to them to apply and comment. Most of the time, they are worried about its practicality and applicability.

In PMI Global Congress 2015 – North America, a paper presented and claimed that “There is a growing trend, that when a project fails, project governance seems to be the root cause for the unsuccessfully executed project”.

Governance failure means failure of people, or failure of systems, or failure of implementing the systems. In all of them, people are the only part who are under stress and they are the key players to the systems selection and implementation.

When a project fails many questions would be raised. The most important questions are four only as following:

What is a project failure?

Who is responsible, is it the project manager or the related organization function managers or the team or the systems?

How can we address the project governance within the corporates governance system?

What are the lesson learned?

First, let’s agree that project failure definition in the project management arena is not agreed fully. The most agreed definition is “the project fails when it did not deliver its promises according to the organization business goals”.

From my view, I would define it as “the project fails when it doesn’t identify the right risks and manage them afterwards”. I prefer this definition because all projects have problems and might go overrun and time delays, because each project has different situations and risks. If the team did not understand them and manage them, the project will get out of control and fail.

Having address the above, we have many research about the factors for projects failure. Managing the factor’s areas would limit the failure of the project. But this article is not about all factors, it is about the governance of people factor only.

Now, coming to the question of who is responsible?

Lets start by one reason for failure which is the blaming game. Therefore, lets not put such question as part of the governance. People who works do mistakes. The question is what did the people do when they discover the mistake or what they did to avoid the mistake form first place. 

In most cases, if not all, the project manager is appointed after the governance system is implemented and the other functions managers are working in the organisation for years.

Most of the time, the project manager changed and appointed after the project is started and maybe it’s already facing many problems and challenges.

Here, let’s split the situation between a normal project facing problems which is normal and a project with noticeable problems.

Questions like, did the project manager have a say in the existing governance system is important. Did they agree on the definition of project success or failure and how shared responsibilities within the organization in the different departments contribute to this failure or success?

Another question would be who is involved on defining the reasons for failure and how much experience they have on similar projects and situations?

The subject becomes more complicated when we think about the failure within portfolio and a corporate systems.

While portfolio controls and its governance will be linked to the project controls directly however, corporate governance is not about corporate control – it merely provides the overall framework within which corporate control should be exercised. From a management perspective, projects should have nearly all the functional components of corporate organisations, including human resources, finance, administration, etc. Here how the governance system links the corporate governance with the project governance. If the head of departments hold many responsibilities impacting the project success starting from defining the list of who is invited to bid, to the cash flow controls, to the recruitment process, and many other aspects, it limits the the project manager authorities and responsibilities.

Moreover, the subject becomes more complicated when the project is in its early development stages where many assumptions are there.

So what we need to do to address the project manager governance?

There are many points the governance system should consider defining the governance of the project manager as following:

1.     The commitment to abide by laws and regulations at all times and protecting the organisation best interest.

2.     The roles and responsibilities :-

Here, a mature governance system will give rankling of the roles and responsibilities because you can’t give the full roles and responsibility for all projects managers and the new managers compared to the old managers.

3.     Identify the reporting cycle and the details of each report. Failure on this point is a main reason for project failure because it limits dealing with the risks and making the right decision at the right time.

4.     The delegation of authority within the corporate and within the portfolio and project.

5.     The type of involvement on bidding stage and project team recruitment stage.

6.     The right to define the required team to deliver its responsibilities.

7.     The agreement of cash flow when needed.

8.     Commitment to use the systems, templates and processes.

9.     Commitment to response to any inquiry by other project manager, department heads, and stakeholders.

10.  Commitment to delegate authority to deputy project manager and others as needed.

11.  Commitment to provide solutions to the project problems that serve the organisation best interest.

12.  Commitment to keeping records as required by the system ready for access when requested.

13.  Commitment to manage resources wisely with limited waste.

14.  Commitment to develop the system as the lesson learned occurs.

15.  Commitment to deliver within the defined time and cost as much as possible. When any deviation happens, to prepare a new plan to limit any delays and cost.

And many as the organisation might need.

So what do you think, do you have the above governance on place?

What else you think should be included or removed?

Thanks for reading

Ziad Albasir  

Visits: 777