Project sponsorship is a task and a responsibility; not an endorsement or badge of honour.

If you can’t field an active sponsor for every project; you are trying to do too much.

Executives and budget holders: Before you put your (good) name to another business case or project initiation document, ask yourself Have I got time to make this a success? Leadership time – management bandwidth [sic] - is an important factor in the success of project delivery.

In high performing organisations that really get stuff done the sponsor is within the project. If the project is going wrong, it’s them who feel the pressure to play a role in resolving challenges. In business that ‘get’ (as much as ‘do’) agile, this is the elevated Product Owner role.

In organisations that struggle to get stuff done, or are taking on too much, the sponsor always seems to be somehow outside the project. More a client who commissions the project rather than a participant. If the project is going wrong their role is one of victim.

In the worst cases the sponsor is more a concept than an actual person. A budgeting formality with the most senior executive listed. They don’t have a role other than the mere mention of their name should somehow cause action and focus.

If the senior sponsor doesn’t have the time, delegate it. Explicitly. Appoint a sponsor that does have time. The best person to give this role to is the person that would end up working as the proxy-sponsor anyway.

If your organisation doesn’t feel able to do this then you have an accountability-responsibility problem. Whatever you do don’t start without one, otherwise who is the project answering to? You can set up committees and steering groups and generally govern around it, but that rarely brings leadership.

The importance of this is amplified in agile-mode. Every sponsor would always like more done faster for less. Delivery teams are finding ways to do this. The bad news for the sponsor is that as the pace picks up, this requires them to pay attention more and make decisions more frequently.

The era of sponsors (executives?) who want to contribute solely through a monthly steering group meeting is over. The era of shouting new thoughts into a conference call while driving to golf or flying from one meeting to another is over. The era of demanding “pre-reads” and other artificial work products you don’t read (pre- or otherwise) is over.

Sponsor if you have the time to really back it. If not, sit back and let someone else do it.