Here’s a post to print and paste on the door of your project sponsor. Most sponsors don’t fully understand their responsibilities. They think it’s a matter of inventing a project goal and then telling a team to go do it. Well, there’s a little more to it.

I’ve put this list together after years of working with project teams and sponsors. I’ve borrowed language from myriad sources. I’ve found that when I go over this list with the sponsor and the team early in the project, it helps to set a positive and productive tone for the entire project.

The sponsor has the following duties:

• Has financial responsibility for the project
• Assists in the development of the project charter and approves the project scope definition
• Approves the project plan
• Communicates clearly with the client and manages client expectations and relationships
• Is responsible for the functional quality of the solution
• Questions the realism of plans and resource estimates
• Considers whether those aspects of the requirements which are risky, difficult, or expensive are essential
• Avoids imposing deadlines without asking for and accepting the consequences for scope and resources
• Gives the project manager clear authority to make all decisions within the scope, objectives and priorities
• Helps the project manager resolve aspects of the scope and objectives which are not clear
• Asks for and listens to bad news
• Consults rapidly and makes decisions promptly
• Supports a good project/opportunity in trouble, and ends a bad one
• Proactively takes the job seriously