The 1, 2, 3s of establishing your PMO priorities

There’s a good chance that your organization is in the position of needing to do more with less under the strain of staffing constraints and competing initiatives. With fewer resources to work with, you’ll need to be persuasive to get the green light on new enterprise technology initiatives. To do that, you need to present decision makers with well-thought-out and targeted business cases that show your initiative will have impact and will be successful. Yet developing such a business case is no walk in the park. Perhaps because our firm has its roots in New England, we sometimes compare this process to leading a hiking trip into the woods—into the wild. 

Just as in hiking, success in developing a business case for a new initiative boils down to planning, preparation, and applying a few key concepts we’ve learned from our travels. 

Consensus is critical when planning new technology initiatives

Before you can start the hike, everyone has to agree on some fundamentals: 

Who's going? 

Where are we going? 

When do we go and for how long? 

Getting everyone to agree requires clear communication and, yes, even a little salesmanship: “Trust me. The bears aren’t bad this time of year.” The same principle applies in proposing new technology initiatives; making sure everyone has bought into the basic framework of the initiative is critical to success.

Although many hiking trips involve groups of people similar in age, ability, and whereabouts, for your business initiative you need to communicate with diverse groups of colleagues at every level of the organization. Gaining consensus among people who bring a wide variety of skills and perspectives to the project can be complex.

To gain consensus, consider the intended audiences of your message and target the content to what will work for them. It should provide enough information for executive-level stakeholders to quickly understand the initiative and the path forward. It should give people responsible for implementation or who will provide specific skills substantive information to implement the plan. And remember: one of the most common reasons projects struggle to meet their stated objectives (and why some projects never materialize to begin with), is a lack of sponsorship and buy-in. The goal of a business case is to gain buy-in before project initiation, so your sponsors will actively support the project during implementation. 

Set clear goals for your enterprise technology project 

It’s refreshing to take the first steps, to feel that initial sense of freedom as you set off down the trail. Yet few people truly enjoy wandering around aimlessly in the wilderness for an extended period of time. Hikers need goals, like reaching a mountain peak or seeing famous landmarks, or hiking a predetermined number of miles per day. And having a trail guide is key in meeting those goals. 

For a new initiative, clearly define goals and objectives, as well as pain points your organization wishes to address. This is critical to ensuring that the project’s sponsors and implementation team are all on the same page. Identifying specific benefits of completing your initiative can help people keep their “eyes on the prize” when the project feels like an uphill climb.

Timelines provide additional detail and direction—and demonstrate to decision makers that you have considered multiple facets of the project, including any constraints, resource limitations, or scheduling conflicts. Identifying best practices to incorporate throughout the initiative enhances the value of a business case proposition, and positions the organization for success. By leveraging lessons learned on previous projects, and planning for and mitigating risk, the organization will begin to clear the path for a successful endeavor. 

Don’t compromise on the right equipment

Hiking can be an expensive, time-consuming hobby. While the quality of your equipment and the accuracy of your maps are crucial, you can do things with limited resources if you’re careful. Taking the time to research and purchase the right equipment, (like the right hiking boots), keeps your fun expedition from becoming a tortuous slog. 

Similarly, in developing a business case for a new initiative, you need to make sure that you identify the right resources in the right areas. We all live with resource constraints of one sort or another. The process of identifying resources, particularly for funding and staffing the project, will lead to fewer surprises down the path. As many government employees know all too well, it is better to be thorough in the budget planning process than to return to authorizing sources for additional funding while midstream in a project. 

Consider your possible outcomes

You cannot be too singularly focused in the wild; weather conditions change quickly, unexpected opportunities reveal themselves, and being able to adapt quickly is absolutely necessary in order for everyone to come home safely. Sometimes, you should take the trail less traveled, rest in the random lean-to that you and your group stumble upon, or go for a refreshing dip in a lake. By focusing on more than just one single objective, it often leads to more enjoyable, safe, and successful excursions.

This type of outlook is necessary to build a business case for a new initiative. You may need to step back during your initial planning and consider the full impact of the process, including on those outside your organization. For example, you may begin to identify ways in which the initiative could benefit both internal and external stakeholders, and plan to move forward in a slightly new direction. Let’s say you’re building a business case for a new land management and permitting software system. Take time to consider that this system may benefit citizens, contractors, and other organizations that interact with your department. This new perspective can help you strengthen your business case. 

Expect teamwork

A group that doesn’t practice teamwork won’t last long in the wild. In order to facilitate and promote teamwork, it’s important to recognize the skills and contributions of each and every person. Some have a better sense of direction, while some can more easily start campfires. And if you find yourself fortunate enough to be joined by a truly experienced hiker, make sure that you listen to what they have to say.

Doing the hard work to present a business case for a new initiative may feel like a solitary action at times, but it’s not. Most likely, there are other people in your organization who see the value in the initiative. Recognize and utilize their skills in your planning. We also suggest working with an experienced advisor who can leverage best practices and lessons learned from similar projects. Their experience will help you anticipate potential resistance and develop and articulate the mitigation strategies necessary to gain support for your initiative.

If you have thoughts, concerns, or questions, contact our team. We love to discuss the potential and pitfalls of new initiatives, and can help prepare you to head out into the wild. We’d love to hear any parallels with hiking and wilderness adventuring that you have as well. Let us know! 

BerryDunn’s local government consulting team has the experience to lead technology planning initiatives and develop actionable plans that help you think strategically and improve service delivery. We partner with you, maintaining flexibility and open lines of communication to help ensure that your team has the resources it needs.

Our team has broad and deep experience partnering with local government clients across the country to modernize technology-based business transformation projects and the decision-making and planning efforts. Our expertise includes software system assessments/planning/procurement and implementation project management; operational, management, and staffing assessments; information security; cost allocation studies; and data management.  

Read this if your organization is planning on upgrading or replacing an enterprise technology system.

It can be challenging and stressful to plan for technology initiatives, especially those that involve and impact every area of your organization. Common initiatives include software upgrades or replacements for:

• Financial management, such as Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems
• Asset management systems
• Electronic health records (EHR) systems
• Permitting and inspections systems

Though the number of considerations when planning enterprise technology projects can be daunting, the greatest mistake you can make is not planning at all. By addressing just a few key areas, you can avoid some of the most common pitfalls, such as exceeding budget and schedule targets, experiencing scope creep, and losing buy-in among stakeholders. Here are some tips to help you navigate your next project:

Identify your IT project roles and resources

While most organizations understand the importance of identifying project stakeholder groups, it is often an afterthought. Defining these roles at the outset of your project helps you accurately estimate the work effort.

Your stakeholder groups may include:

• An executive sponsor
• A steering committee
• A project manager
• Functional leads
• A technical team

Once you’ve established the necessary roles, you can begin reviewing your organization’s resources to determine the people who will be available to fill them. Planning for resource availability will help you avoid delays, minimize impact to regular business processes, and reduce the likelihood of burnout. But this plan won’t remain static—you can expect to make updates throughout the project.

Establish clear goals and objectives to keep your technology project on track

It’s important that an enterprise technology project has established goals and objectives statements. These statements will help inform decision-making, provide benchmarks for progress, and measure your project’s success. They can then be referenced when key stakeholders have differing perspectives on the direction to take with a pending decision. For example, if the objective of your project is to reduce paper-based processes, you may plan for additional computer workstations and focus technical resources on provisioning them. You’ll also be able to measure your success in the reduction of paper-based tasks.

Estimate your IT project budget accurately

Project funding is hardly ever overlooked, but can be complex with project budgets that are either underestimated or estimated without sufficient rationale to withstand approval processes and subsequent budget analysis. You may find that breaking down estimates to a lower level of detail helps address these challenges. Most technology projects incur costs in three key areas:

• Vendor cost: This could include both one-time software implementation costs as well as recurring costs for maintenance and ongoing support.
• Infrastructure cost: Consider the cost of any investments needed to support your project, such as data center hardware, networking components, or computing devices.
• Supplemental resource cost: Don’t forget to include the cost of any additional resources needed for their specialized knowledge or to simply backfill project staff. This could include contracted resources or the additional cost of existing resources (i.e., overtime).

A good technology project budget also includes a contingency amount. This amount will depend on your organization’s standards, the relative level of confidence in your estimates, and the relative risk.

Anticipate the need for change management

Depending on the project, staff in many areas of your organization will be impacted by some level of change during a technology implementation. External stakeholders, such as vendors and the public, may also be affected. You can effectively manage this change by proactively identifying areas of likely change resistance and creating strategies to address them.

In any technology implementation, you will encounter change resistance you did not predict. Having strategies in place will help you react quickly and effectively. Some proven change management strategies include communicating throughout your project, involving stakeholders to get their buy-in, and helping ensure management has the right amount of information to share with their employees.

Maintain focus and stay flexible as you manage your IT project

Even with the most thought-out planning, unforeseen events and external factors may impact your technology project. Establish mechanisms to regularly and proactively monitor project status so that you can address material risks and issues before their impact to the project grows. Reacting to these items as they arise requires key project stakeholders to be flexible. Key stakeholders must recognize that new information does not necessarily mean previous decisions were made in error, and that it is better to adapt than to stick to the initial direction.

Whether you’re implementing an ERP, an EHR, or enterprise human resources or asset management systems, any enterprise technology project is a massive undertaking, involving significant investment and a coordinated effort with individuals across multiple areas of an organization. Common mistakes can be costly, but having a structured approach to your planning can help avoid pitfalls. Our experienced, objective advisors have worked with public and private organizations across the country to oversee large enterprise projects from inception to successful completion.

Contact our software consulting team with any questions.

Editor’s note: If you are a state government CFO, CIO, project or program manager, this blog is for you.

What is the difference in how government organizations procure agile vs. non-agile information technology (IT) services? (Learn more about agile here).

In each case, they typically follow five stages through the process as shown in Figure A:
 

Figure A: Overview of Procurement Process for Agile vs. Non-Agile IT Services

However, there are differences in how these stages are carried out if procuring agile vs. non-agile IT services. 

Unfortunately, most government organizations are unaware of these differences, which could result in unsuccessful procurements and ultimately not meeting your project’s needs and expectations. 
This blog series will illustrate how to strategically adjust the standard stages outlined in Figure A to successfully procure agile IT services.

Stage 1: Plan project
In Stage 1, you define the scope of the project by identifying what your organization wants, needs, and can achieve within the available timeframe and budget. You then determine the project’s objectives while strategically considering their impact on your organization before developing the RFP. Figure B summarizes the key differences between the impacts of agile vs. non-agile services to consider in this stage.

Figure B: Plan Project for Agile vs. Non-Agile IT Services

The nuances of planning for agile services reflect an organization’s readiness for a culture shift to a continuous process of development and deployment of software and system updates. 

Stage 2: Draft RFP
In Stage 2, as part of RFP drafting, define the necessary enhancements and functionality needed to achieve the project objectives determined in Stage 1. You then translate these enhancements and functionalities into business requirements. Requirement types might include business needs as functionality, services, staffing, deliverables, technology, and performance standards. Figure C summarizes the key differences between drafting the RFP for a project procuring agile vs. non-agile services.

Figure C: Draft RFP for Agile vs. Non-Agile IT Services

In drafting the RFP, the scope of work emphasizes expectations for how your team and the vendor team will work together, the terms of how progress will be monitored, and the description of requirements for agile tools and methods.

Stage 3: Issue RFP
In Stage 3, issue the RFP to the vendor community, answer vendor questions, post amendments, and manage the procurement schedule. Since this stage of the process requires you to comply with your organization’s purchasing and procurement rules, Figure D illustrates very little difference between issuing an RFP for a project procuring agile or non-agile services.

Figure D: Issue RFP for Agile vs. Non-Agile IT Services 

Stage 4: Review proposals
In Stage 4, you evaluate vendor proposals against the RFP’s requirements and project objectives to determine the best proposal response. Figure E summarizes the key differences in reviewing proposals for a project that is procuring agile vs. non-agile services.

Figure E: Reviewing Proposals for Agile vs. Non-Agile IT Services 

Having appropriate evaluation priorities and scoring weights that align with how agile services are delivered should not be under-emphasized. 

Stage 5: Award and implement contract
In Stage 5, you award and implement the contract with the best vendor proposal identified during Stage 4. Figure F summarizes the key differences in awarding and implementing the contract for agile vs. non-agile services.

Figure F:  Award and Implement Contract for Agile vs. Non-Agile Services 

Due to the iterative and interactive requirements of agile, it is necessary to have robust and frequent collaboration among program teams, executives, sponsors, and the vendor to succeed in your agile project delivery.

What’s next?
The blog posts in this series will explain step-by-step how to procure agile services through the five stages, and at the series conclusion, your organization will better understand how to successfully procure and implement agile services. If you have questions or comments, please contact our team.  

Law enforcement, courts, prosecutors, and corrections personnel provide many complex, seemingly limitless services. Seemingly is the key word here, for in reality these personnel provide a set number of incredibly important services.

Therefore, it should surprise no one that justice and public safety (J&PS) IT departments should also provide a well-defined set of services. However, these departments are often viewed as parking lots for all technical problems. The disconnect between IT and other J&PS business units often stems from differences in organizational culture and structure, and differing department objectives and goals. As a result, J&PS organizations often experience misperception between business units and IT. The solution to this disconnect and misperception? Defining IT department services.

The benefits of defined IT services

1. Increased business customer satisfaction. Once IT services align with customer needs, and expectations are established (e.g., service costs and service level agreements), customers can expect to receive the services they agreed to, and the IT department can align staff and skill levels to successfully meet those needs.
2. Improved IT personnel morale. With clear definition of the services they provide to their customers, including clearly defined processes for customers to request those services, IT personnel will no longer be subject to “rogue” questions or requests, and customers won’t be inclined to circumvent the process. This decreases IT staff stress and enables them to focus on their roles in providing the defined services. 
3. Better alignment of IT services to organizational needs. Through collaboration between the business and IT organizations, the business is able to clearly articulate the IT services that are, and aren’t, required. IT can help define realistic service levels and associated services costs, and can align IT staff and skills to the agreed-upon services. This results in increased IT effectiveness and reduced confusion regarding what services the business can expect from IT.
4. More collaboration between IT and the organization. The collaboration between the IT and business units in defining services results in an enhanced relationship between these organizations, increasing trust and clarifying expectations. This collaborative model continues as the services required by the business evolve, and IT evolves to support them.
5. Reduced costs. J&PS organizations that fail to strategically align IT and business strategy face increasing financial costs, as the organization is unable to invest IT dollars wisely. When a business doesn’t see IT as an enabler of business strategy, IT is no longer the provider of choice—and ultimately risks IT services being outsourced to a third-party vendor.

Next steps
Once a J&PS IT department defines its services to support business needs, it then can align the IT staffing model (i.e., numbers of staff, skill sets, roles and responsibilities), and continue to collaborate with the business to identify evolving services, as well as remove services that are no longer relevant. Contact us for help with this next step and other IT strategies and tactics for justice and public safety organizations.

If you’ve been tasked with leading a high-impact project for your organization, you may find managing the scope, budget and schedule is not enough to ensure project success—especially when you encounter resistance to change. When embarking on large-scale change projects spanning people, processes and technology, appointing staff as “coaches” to help support stakeholders through the change—and to manage resistance to the change—can help increase adoption and buy-in for a new way of doing things.

The first step is to identify candidates for the coaching role. These candidates are often supervisory staff who have credibility in the organization—whether as a subject matter expert, through internal leadership, or from having a history of client satisfaction. Next, you need a work plan to orient them to this role. One critical component is making sure the coaches themselves understand what the change means for their role, and have fully committed before asking them to coach others. They may exhibit initial resistance to the change you will need to manage before they can be effective coaches. According to research done by Prosci®, a leading change management research organization, some of the most common reasons for supervisor resistance in large-scale change projects are:

• Lack of awareness about and involvement in the change
• Loss of control or negative impact on job role
• Increased work load (i.e., lack of time)
• Culture of change resistance and past failures
• Impact to their team

You should anticipate encountering these and other types of resistance from staff while preparing them to be coaches. Once coaches buy into the change, they will need ongoing support and guidance to fulfill their role. This support will vary by individual, but may be correlated to what managerial skills they already possess, or don’t. How can you focus on developing coaching skills among your staff for purposes of the project? Prosci® recommends a successful change coach take on the following roles:

• Communicator—communicate with direct reports about the change
• Liaison—engage and liaise with the project team
• Advocate—advocate and champion the change
• Resistance manager—identify and manage resistance
• Coach—coach employees through the change

One of the initial tasks for your coaches will be to assess the existing level of change resistance and evaluate what resistance you may encounter. Prosci® identifies three types of resistance management work for your coaches to begin engaging in as they meet with their employees about the change:

• Resistance prevention―by providing engagement opportunities for stakeholders throughout the project, building awareness about the change early on, and reinforcing executive-level support, coaches can often head off expected resistance.
• Proactive resistance management―this approach requires coaches to anticipate the needs and understand the characteristics of their staff, and assess how they might react to change in light of these attributes. Coaches can then plan for likely forms of resistance in advance, with a structured mitigation approach.
• Reactive resistance management―this focuses on resistance that has not been mitigated with the previous two types of resistance management, but instead persists or endures for an extended amount of time. This type of management may require more analysis and planning, particularly as the project nears its completion date.

Do you have candidates in your organization who may need support transitioning into coaching roles? Do you anticipate change resistance among your stakeholders? Contact us and we can help you develop a plan to address your specific challenges.

Truly effective preventive health interventions require starting early, as evidenced by the large body of research and the growing federal focus on the role of Medicaid in addressing Social Determinants of Health (SDoH) and Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs).

Focusing on early identification of SDoH and ACEs, CMS recently announced its Integrated Care for Kids (InCK) model and will release the related Notice of Funding Opportunity this fall.

CMS describes InCK as a child-centered approach that uses community-based service delivery and alternative payment models (APMs) to improve and expand early identification, prevention, and treatment of priority health concerns, including behavioral health issues. The model’s goals are to improve child health, reduce avoidable inpatient stays and out-of-home placement, and create sustainable APMs. Such APMs would align payment with care quality and support provider/payer accountability for improved child health outcomes by using care coordination, case management, and mobile crisis response and stabilization services.

State Medicaid agencies have many things to consider when evaluating this funding opportunity. Building on current efforts and innovations, building or leveraging strong partnerships with community organizations, incentivizing evidence-based interventions, and creating risk stratification of the target population are critical parts of the InCK model. Here are three additional areas to consider:

1. Data. States will need information for early identification of children in the target population. State agencies?like housing, justice, child welfare, education, and public health have this information?and external organizations—such as childcare, faith-based, and recreation groups—are also good sources of early identification. It is immensely complicated to access data from these disparate sources. State Medicaid agencies will be required to support local implementation by providing population-level data for the targeted geographic service area.

• Data collection challenges include a lack of standardized measures for SDoH and ACEs, common data field definitions, or consistent approaches to data classification; security and privacy of protected health information; and IT development costs.
• Data-sharing agreements with internal and external sources will be critical for state Medicaid agencies to develop, while remaining mindful of protected health information regulations.
• Once data-sharing agreements are in place, these disparate data sources, with differing file structures and nomenclature, will require integration. The integrated data must then be able to identify and risk-stratify the target population.

For any evaluative approach or any APM to be effective, clear quality and outcome measures must be developed and adopted across all relevant partner organizations.

2. Eligibility. Reliable, integrated eligibility and enrollment systems are crucial points of identification and make it easier to connect to needed services.

• Applicants for one-benefit programs should be screened for eligibility for all programs they may need to achieve positive health outcomes.
• Any agency at which potential beneficiaries appear should also have enrollment capability, so it is easier to access services.

3. Payment models. State Medicaid agencies may cover case management services and/or targeted case management as well as health homes; leverage Early and Periodic Screening, Diagnostic, and Treatment (EPSDT) services; and modify managed care organization contract language to encourage, incent, and in some cases, require services related to the InCK model and SDoH. Value-based payment models, already under exploration in numerous states, include four basic approaches:

• Pay for performance—provider payments are tied directly to specific quality or efficiency indicators, including health outcomes under the provider organization’s control. 
• Shared savings/risk—some portion of the organization’s compensation depends on the managed care entity achieving cost savings for the targeted patient population, while realizing specific health outcomes or quality improvement.
• Pay for success—payment is dependent upon achieving desired outcomes rather than underlying services.
• Capitated or bundled payments—managed care entities pay an upfront per member per month lump sum payment to an organization for community care coordination activities and link that with fee-for-service reimbursement for delivering value-added services.

By focusing on upstream prevention, comprehensive service delivery, and alternative payment models, the InCK model is a promising vehicle to positively impact children’s health. Though its components require significant thought, strategy, coordination, and commitment from state Medicaid agencies and partners, there are early innovators providing helpful examples and entities with vast Section 1115 waiver development and Medicaid innovation experience available to assist.

As state Medicaid agencies develop and implement primary and secondary prevention, cost savings can be achieved while meaningful improvements are made in children’s lives.

Are you struggling to improve business outcomes through modifications to your software solutions? If so, then you have no doubt tried — or are trying — traditional software implementation approaches. Yet, these methods can overwhelm staff, require strong project management, and consume countless hours (and dollars).

It may be time for your organization to consider the DevOps (Development and Operations) implementation model — a software implementation approach that uses agile methodologies.

The DevOps implementation model — proven to be effective in upgrading large software solutions such as Integrated Eligibility and Enrollment — increases organizational flexibility with frequent prioritization of business problems.

An alternative approach
In contrast to traditional software implementation approaches, the DevOps implementation model features continuous collaboration by the development and operations teams in breaking down, prioritizing, and implementing solution fixes in small release packages. Positive results include improved business prioritization through collaboration, better management of the backlog of software requests, focused development staff efforts, and high-velocity implementation of each release — leading to an improved software solution.

Here are seven essential implementation steps for adopting the DevOps implementation model:

Step 1: Define your software solution’s backlog of outstanding business problems — Understanding the business problems is the first step towards solving them.

Step 2: Prioritize the business backlog using such factors as:

• Operational impact
• Priority and severity levels
• Development level of effort
• Infrastructure considerations

Step 3: Schedule regular team meetings to address the status, prioritization, and resolution of the software solution’s business backlog — keeping the team focused and coordinated increases your efficiency towards resolution.

Step 4: Group prioritized items into small work packages that you can release through the software development life cycle (SDLC) in two- to three-week efforts —helping to keep work packages in small, organized, and manageable packages.

Step 5: Cycle each release through the various stages of the SDLC, utilizing an implementation approach that is defined, documented, and approved by all key stakeholders —providing a predictable and repeatable process for simultaneous development of multiple work packages.

Step 6: Schedule work package releases for implementation to help coordination and planning activities with stakeholders prior to implementation.

Step 7: Implement and integrate the software solution into operations. Making sure stakeholders are aware of release changes is critical for the success of a release. Be sure staff are trained ahead of the release, and that changes are communicated to all appropriate audiences.

You can pair DevOps with other methodologies. This allows you to address smaller components of functionality through DevOps while leaving larger components of functionality to traditional methodologies.

Other considerations:

• Once you resolve the business problem, monitor the solution to make sure the release did not negatively impact other areas of your software solution.
• Ensure the software solution is supported by management plans (e.g., change, configuration, and issue management plans) that are thorough and approved by the key stakeholders. This will help ensure expectations of processes and procedures are agreed upon.
• Maintain the list of business problems in a location accessible to all key stakeholders for awareness, accessibility, and accountability purposes.
• Communicate, report, and manage the status, definition, and/or resolution of issues and/or defects in a consistent, concise, and clear manner to assist in efficiently prioritizing and addressing your business problems.
• Begin communicating the impact of the issue and/or defect as soon as possible–the sooner the issue and/or defect is known; the quicker the team can begin down the path towards resolution.
• Develop materials to train affected staff. Clear and concise training materials will help educate and communicate updated processes to stakeholders.

Improving your software solution
Finding a way to improve your software solution does not always mean using traditional software implementation approaches. Based on our experience, we’ve learned that collaboration between the development and operations teams, and continuously repeating the seven steps of the DevOps implementation model, allows organizations to efficiently address software solution problems.

Interested in learning more about how the DevOps implementation model could work for your organization? Please contact Zachary Rioux.

Most of us have been (or should have been) instructed to avoid using clichés in our writing. These overstated phrases and expressions add little value, and often only increase sentence length. We should also avoid clichés in our thinking, for what we think can often influence how we act.

Consider, for example, “death by committee.” This cliché has greatly — and negatively — skewed views on the benefits of committees in managing projects. Sure, sometimes committee members have difficulty agreeing with one another, which can lead to delays and other issues. In most cases, though, an individual can’t possibly oversee all aspects of a project, or represent all interests in an organization. Committees are vital for project success — and arguably the most important project committee is the steering committee.

What Exactly is a Steering Committee?
It is a group of high-level stakeholders that provides strategic direction for a project, and supports the project manager. Ideally, the group increases the chances for project success by closely aligning project goals to organizational goals. However, it is important to point out that the group’s top priority is project success.

The committee should represent the different departments and agencies affected by the project, but remain relatively small in size, chaired by someone who is not an executive sponsor of the project (in order to avoid conflicts of interest). While the project manager should serve on the steering committee, they should not participate in decision-making; the project manager’s role is to update members on the project’s progress, areas of concern, current issues, and options for addressing these issues.

Overall, the main responsibilities of a steering committee include:

1. Approving the Project Charter
2. Resolving conflicts between stakeholder groups
3. Monitoring project progress against the project management plan
4. Fostering positive communicating about the project within the organization
5. Addressing external threats and issues emerging outside of the project that could impact it
6. Reviewing and approving changes made to the project resource plan, scope, schedules, cost estimates, etc.

What Are the Pros and Cons of Utilizing a Steering Committee?
A group of executive stakeholders providing strategic direction should benefit any project. Because steering committee members are organizational decision-makers, they have the access and credibility to address tough issues that can put the project at a risk, and have the best opportunities to negotiate positive outcomes. In addition, steering committees can engage executive management, and make sure the project meshes with executive management’s vision, mission, and long-range strategic plan. Steering committees can empower project managers, and ensure that all departments and agencies are on the same page in regards to project status, goals, and expectations. In a 2009 article in Project Management Journal, authors Thomas G. Lechler and Martin Cohen concluded that steering committees are important to implementing and maintaining project management standards on an operational level — not only do steering committees directly support project success, they are instrumental in deriving value from an organization's investments in its project management system.

A steering committee is only as effective as it’s allowed to be. A poorly structured steering committee that lacks formal authority, clear roles, and clear responsibilities can impede the success of a project by being slow to respond to project issues. A proactive project manager can help the organization avoid this major pitfall by helping develop project documents, such as the governance document or project plan that clearly define the steering committee structure, roles, responsibilities and authority.

Steer Toward Success!
Steering committees can benefit your organization and its major projects. Yet understanding the roles and responsibilities — and pros and cons — is only a preliminary step in creating a steering committee. Need some advice on how to organize a steering committee? Want to learn more about steering committee best practices? Together, we can steer your project toward success.