Scoping a Project

Project Organisation and Responsibilities

This should cover the following:

Those actively involved in carrying-out the project
The key players in the project organisation are depicted below. It should include Project Sponsor, Project Manager, the project team - and the key responsibilities and delegations. Also any other key contributions needed - specialist support, contractors, etc. Reproduce the map below showing the key roles and individuals or groups who carry them out.
Project Control
Planned review meetings (sponsor/manager), team meetings, and end-of-phase reports.

Project Organisation Map

Key Points

Of these roles, the key roles are clearly those of Sponsor and Project Manager.

Each project should have a named Project Manager who is the focal point of the project, and a named Project Sponsor who "sponsors" the project on behalf of the organisation. The sponsor may be an individual or a group – perhaps a steering group or a project board.

Functions of the Project Sponsor include:

Support the Project Manager when needed (resources, blockages, etc)
Protect the project from undue extraneous influences
Forewarn the Project Manager on relevant changes elsewhere in the organisation or other projects
Sell the project into the strategic arena and the rest of the organisation
Inform, to take key information about the project into the rest of the organisation

For the purpose of the project, the Project Manager reports to the Project Sponsor but the latter’s role extends far beyond that. In practice the best situation is where the sponsor and manager act as a team, each doing what they can to make the project a success.