In addition to knowing why a project was selected, it is valuable to know which senior executives supported or opposed the selection of the project and if the project manager’s supervisor was in favor of it or not. Because most project teams consist of people who do not report to the project manager but who report to other unit managers, they might not be available when you need them if their boss thinks other projects are more important. If a particular executive proposed the project and actively advocated for its approval, that person could be a source of support if the project runs into trouble and needs additional resources. A project champion, sometimes called an executive sponsor, is an influential person who is willing to use his or her influence to help the project succeed.
To identify the advocates and opponents of the project, begin by reading public documents (if available), such as the minutes of the meeting at which the project was approved. Next, the project manager can use his or her unofficial network of trusted colleagues to get their opinions. Those discussions should be informal and off the record. Those opinions might be inaccurate, but it is valuable to know what misunderstandings exist about a project. If executives in an organization are assigned as project sponsors, the project champion might be a different person.
Project Champions Support an Aircraft Project
When Vought Aircraft won a contract with Boeing to build a significant portion of the fuselage for the new 787 Dreamliner in Charleston, South Carolina, there was no existing workforce with aircraft experience. To give Vought Aircraft an incentive to locate the plant in South Carolina, Governor Mark Sanford, with the support of the legislature, committed to the recruitment and training of the workforce needed for the plant to be successful. The legislature provided several million dollars and assigned the role of developing a trained workforce to the South Carolina Technical College System and Trident Technical College, the local community college in Charleston, South Carolina.
Dr. Jim Hudgins, president of South Carolina’s Technical College System, assigned the most experienced project manager to the project and personally accepted the role of project sponsor.
Dr. Hudgins and Dr. Thornley, president of Trident Technical College, met with the project leadership at least monthly to review project plans and progress. Each month both Dr. Hudgins and Dr. Thornley assigned resources and removed barriers to project success. Dr. Thornley assigned procurement personnel to the project to assure materials were purchased and delivered in time to support the project schedule. She reallocated space to provide training laboratories for the project and assigned a college leader to the project full-time to coordinate actions with the college. Dr. Hudgins coordinated with the Governor’s office to assure the project received the appropriate level of support.
Both Dr. Hudgins and Dr. Thornley had the political power and the resources to assure the project had the autonomy and the resources to succeed. The project met every milestone, exceeded every measurable goal, and received high praise from Vought Management as the plant began operations on schedule.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
- A mission statement declares the purpose of the organization and identifies the primary stakeholders, the products or services offered, and the responsibility toward the stakeholders. Goals are statements of direction for the organization, and objectives are activities that achieve those goals with measurable outcomes.
- Profit-making organizations exist to make profits for their owners while in competition with other companies. The goals of those companies are directed at making as much or more money than the competition. Not-for-profit organizations are directed at providing a service to a particular group. They must control costs to perform their tasks with the funds they have, and they compete with other not-for-profit organizations for donations and funding. A government agency is similar to a not-for-profit organization, but its sources of funding are usually taxes, fees, and funding from a higher level of government, and it has a responsibility to the citizens it represents. Government organizations must justify their expenditure of tax money to elected or appointed officials.
- Two economic tools for evaluating and comparing projects are simple payback and internal rate of return. Simple payback is a calculation of the year when the cumulative income or savings due to spending money on a project will meet or exceed the original cost of the project. Internal rate of return is a calculation of the average percentage of increased cash flow over the life of the project’s product.
- A project champion is an influential person who is willing to use his or her influence to help the project succeed. It is useful to know why the project champion wants the project to succeed and to be sure to accomplish that goal even if it is not stated.
- Project selection depends on the availability of funds, which depends on the way each type of organization receives money for projects. Funds might be available at certain times and projects are selected that can take advantage of that opportunity. Projects might be initiated for reasons that are not stated, and investigating the source of funding and likely motivation of project champions can provide better understanding of the project’s chances for success.
EXERCISES
- An end toward which effort is directed that has measurable outcomes is an in this text.
- A general statement of the direction an organization should take is a .
- If a company has to make quarterly loan payments to the bank, this is an example of a negative (two words).
- If you borrow $1,000 and have to pay back $1,010 a month later, the $10 dollars is the .
- If a company had to choose between installing two different pieces of expensive equipment that had different expected lifetimes, different salvage values, and different production capabilities, it would compare the (four words) for each option.
- On Google’s Web pages, it says that they want to “organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.” This is an example of a statement.
- An influential person who is in favor of a project is one of the project .
- If upgrading the windows in a building costs $100,000 and it reduces heating and cooling costs by $5,000 a year, the investment in the window upgrade has a (two words) of twenty years.
- The group that determines the need for a project is the organization.
- What are four parts of a well-written mission statement?
- What is the primary mission of each of the following types of organizations: profit-making, not-for-profit, and government organizations?
- What does it mean if the money spent on a project has a simple payback of five years?
- Why is it important to identify project champions?
- What is an example of funding for a project that is only available for a short period of time under special circumstances?
Internalize your learning experience by preparing to discuss the following.
Choose an example from outside the assigned reading of a mission, goal, and objective that demonstrates the characteristics of each and how they relate to each other. The example can be from a real organization or it can be fictional. Describe the characteristics of a mission, goal, and objective, as defined in this chapter, and how the example demonstrates those characteristics.
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