Project Management: Project Governance

The ubiquitous nature of PMO's, and the development of program and portfolio management across enterprises, offer evidence for the need of a systematic and repeatable framework for managing projects & delivering upon strategic objectives. The role of project governance is further evidence in providing a decision making framework that is logical, robust and repeatable to govern an organization’s capital investments.

Project governance provides a comprehensive, consistent method of controlling a project and ensuring its success. It is a management framework within which major project decisions are made. This decision making framework is supported by 3 pillars:

1. Structure - this refers to the governance committee structure. Most projects include the use of a Project Board, or Project Steering Committee, composed of various stakeholders and stakeholder groups who provide guidance, direction and control to a project within an organization. The functions of the committee might including building a business case for the project, planning, providing assistance and guidance, monitoring the progress, controlling the project scope and resolving conflicts.
2. People - the effectiveness of the committee structure is dependent upon the people that populate the various governance committees. Committee membership is determined by the nature of the project.
3. Information - this concerns the information that informs decision makers and consists of regular reports on the project, issues and risks that have been escalated by the Project Manager and certain key documents that describe the project, foremost of which is the business case.

Project governance frameworks should be based around a number of core principles in order to ensure their effectiveness:

• Principle 1: Ensure a single point of accountability for the success of the project
• Principle 2: Project ownership independent of those who have sponsored the project, allowing for a more objective approach to evaluating scope and project requirements
• Principle 3: Ensure separation of stakeholder management and project decision making activities
• Principle 4: Ensure separation of project governance and organisational governance structures

Proper project governance will:

• Outline the relationships between all internal and external groups involved in the project
• Describe the proper flow of information regarding the project
• Ensure the appropriate review of issues encountered within each project
• Ensure that required approvals and direction for the project is obtained at each appropriate stage of the project