Training Sponsors

Neville Turbit from Project Perfect has recently given me some material for a great case study for my forthcoming book on training your sponsor. He’s covered the same topic on his blog recently too, and it’s good advice.

The sponsor one of my projects has recently changed, so I’ll be moving into ‘training’ mode too: working out if she’s sponsored projects before, explaining her role on this one and what I expect from a sponsor, answering her questions about the project and bringing her up to speed. Normally I produce a crib sheet of the history of the project so far, on just one page of A4, drawing a timeline on which I mark key decision dates and project milestones, as well as future events. Fortunately there are no major decisions for her to take at the moment, but there are a few politically sensitive issues that I’ll need to be tactful when I explain.

Fortunately, she seems very switched on and although she’s new to the organisation I think she’ll do a good job. I think she will be easy to work with too, and I feel we connect on a professional level: practising batting my eyelids was essential preparation for a steering group meeting for one sponsor I worked with in a previous job, so at least I’ll be spared that.