Project Governance: Finding the Sweet Spot Between Control and Autonomy

How the best sponsors and steering committees create project governance conditions for success without stifling delivery.

Following my recent newsletter on balancing board oversight with delivery team autonomy, I’ve received some fascinating insights from fellow project professionals. One response particularly stood out – a description of what truly effective project sponsorship looks like in practice. It got me thinking about why some steering committees become catalysts for project success whilst others become bureaucratic bottlenecks.

The challenge isn’t unique to any particular sector. Whether you’re managing a digital transformation in a law firm, implementing new systems in an accounting practice, or rolling out process changes across a consultancy, the governance dilemma remains constant: how do you maintain appropriate oversight without crushing the very innovation and agility that projects need to succeed?

The Sponsor Who Got It Right

The feedback I received painted a picture of exemplary project sponsorship that’s worth examining in detail. This particular sponsor had developed what I’d call a “future-focused” approach to governance that turned traditional steering committee meetings on their head.

Rather than starting meetings with the usual backward-looking questions about budget variance and timeline slippage, they opened every session with a provocative challenge:

“Forget how much money we’ve spent so far, give me three good reasons we should continue this project.”

This wasn’t about being confrontational or creating unnecessary pressure. It was about forcing the project team to continually articulate the business case in fresh terms, ensuring that the strategic rationale remained compelling regardless of what had already been invested. In behavioural economics, this challenges what’s known as the “sunk cost fallacy” – our tendency to continue investing in something simply because we’ve already invested so much.

But this sponsor understood something even more fundamental about the nature of project governance. They recognised that steering committees are uniquely positioned to influence the future trajectory of projects, not to fix problems that have already crystallised. As one respondent put it:

“There was little the sponsors could actually do to fix yesterday’s and today’s challenges, but sponsors could and should smooth away tomorrow’s problems.”

This insight transforms how we think about steering committee agendas. Instead of spending 80% of the meeting reviewing past performance and 20% looking ahead, effective governance flips this ratio.

The Art of Forward-Looking Project Governance

The sponsor’s approach included ending each steering committee session with a specific question:

“What can we, as sponsors, do to help remove any challenges that are foreseen in the short and medium terms?”

This simple question shift changes everything. It transforms sponsors from judges evaluating past performance to active contributors solving future problems. It acknowledges that the real value of senior leadership involvement isn’t in second-guessing tactical decisions, but in leveraging their organisational influence to clear obstacles that the project team cannot address themselves.

Consider the practical implications. When a project manager identifies that they’ll need additional technical expertise in six weeks’ time, traditional governance waits until the resource shortage becomes a red status before acting. Forward-looking governance starts solving for that need immediately, perhaps by beginning recruitment processes, arranging secondments, or reallocating talent from other areas.

When stakeholder resistance is detected early through engagement feedback, traditional governance asks for a detailed mitigation plan and waits for the next monthly update. Forward-looking governance picks up the phone and has conversations with the resistant stakeholders directly, using senior relationships to address concerns before they calcify into opposition.

The Resource Allocation Revolution

One of the most striking elements of the feedback was this sponsor’s approach to resource allocation. Unlike many senior leaders who treat project assignments as secondary to “business as usual” responsibilities, he “accepted taking staff away from BAU and allocating them 100% to projects.”

This might seem like a simple operational decision, but it represents a fundamental shift in how organisations think about project work. Most professional services firms struggle with the matrix management challenge – trying to deliver projects with people who remain primarily accountable to their departmental managers and billable hour targets.

The enlightened approach recognises that this creates impossible conflicts of priority. When someone is expected to deliver project outcomes whilst maintaining their usual client responsibilities, something has to give. Usually, it’s project quality, timeline, or team morale.

But this sponsor went further, seeing the resource allocation as an opportunity for organisational development. He used project assignments as a method for knowledge transfer and reducing key person dependencies. Rather than viewing project work as disruptive to normal operations, he treated it as a strategic investment in organisational resilience.

When a subject matter expert was assigned full-time to a project, the sponsor ensured their usual responsibilities were genuinely transferred to someone else – not just delegated temporarily. This “backfill or transfer process” meant that knowledge was spread more widely across the organisation, reducing the risks associated with key person dependencies.

Case Study: When Governance Goes Wrong

To illustrate the contrast, let me share an example from the opposite end of the spectrum. I once worked with a steering committee for a customer relationship management system implementation at a mid-sized professional services firm. The project had a clear business case, experienced team members, and adequate budget allocation.

However, the steering committee had developed what they called “rigorous oversight processes.” Every decision above £1,000 required steering committee approval. Every scope change, regardless of size, needed formal change control documentation reviewed by all five committee members. Every risk rated as “medium” or above required a detailed mitigation plan before the project could proceed.

The result was predictably catastrophic. Simple decisions that should have taken hours were taking weeks. The project team spent more time documenting decisions than implementing them. Innovation died because creative solutions couldn’t survive the bureaucratic approval process.

Six months into what should have been a nine-month project, they were barely 30% complete and significantly over budget – not because of poor project management, but because the governance framework had strangled delivery capability.

Meanwhile, the steering committee remained focused on these micro-decisions whilst missing the strategic picture entirely. Market conditions had shifted, competitor offerings had evolved, and client expectations had changed. The system they were so carefully implementing was already obsolete by the time they were halfway through the build.

The Alternative: Strategic Focus in Action

Contrast this with a governance approach I witnessed at a boutique consulting firm implementing a new knowledge management platform. The steering committee, led by a managing partner who understood the principles of effective governance, took a markedly different approach.

Rather than reviewing detailed budget breakdowns, they focused on strategic questions: Was the platform still aligned with the firm’s growth strategy? Were there emerging client needs that should influence the feature set? What organisational changes needed to happen alongside the technology implementation?

When the project team identified technical challenges that would delay the launch by six weeks, the steering committee didn’t demand detailed recovery plans. Instead, they asked whether the delay created opportunities – perhaps to pilot with a different client group, or to incorporate additional features that would increase adoption rates.

Most importantly, they actively used their influence to smooth the project’s path. When user resistance emerged during training sessions, steering committee members personally championed the system in partner meetings. When integration with existing systems proved more complex than anticipated, they authorised direct engagement with vendor executives to expedite resolution.

The project delivered three weeks late but achieved 95% user adoption within the first month – a success rate that exceeded all expectations and transformed how the firm managed client knowledge.

The Decision Rights Framework

Effective governance requires clarity about who decides what, and when. The best steering committees I work with establish clear decision rights frameworks that eliminate ambiguity and reduce bureaucratic overhead.

Typically, this involves three tiers of decision-making:

Project team decisions: Day-to-day operational choices, tactical adjustments within agreed parameters, resource allocation within approved budgets, and risk responses for low-impact issues.

Project manager escalation: Decisions that affect timeline, budget, or scope beyond predetermined tolerances, resource needs that cannot be met within current allocation, and medium-impact risks that require organisational response.

Steering committee reserved matters: Strategic direction changes, significant budget variations, high-impact risk responses, and organisational policy decisions that affect the project.

The key insight is that most decisions should happen at the lowest appropriate level. Steering committees should focus their time on decisions that genuinely require senior judgment and organisational authority, not on rubber-stamping choices that competent project teams can make independently.

Building Future-Focused Agendas

Traditional steering committee meetings follow a predictable pattern: review of last month’s progress, budget variance analysis, risk register updates, and timeline assessments. This backward-looking approach consumes time without creating much value.

Future-focused agendas flip this structure:

Opening strategic review: Is this project still the right thing to be doing? Have market conditions, organisational priorities, or stakeholder needs shifted in ways that affect the project rationale?

Forward obstacle identification: What barriers are emerging on the horizon? What dependencies, resource constraints, or stakeholder issues need senior attention to prevent future problems?

Organisational enablement: How can the steering committee use its influence, relationships, and authority to accelerate progress or remove impediments?

Performance indicators review: Brief assessment of key metrics, with focus on trends and their strategic implications rather than detailed variance analysis.

This approach ensures that steering committee time is invested in activities that only senior leaders can perform effectively, rather than duplicating work that project teams are better positioned to handle.

The Trust Dividend

Perhaps the most significant benefit of getting governance right is the trust dividend it creates. When project teams know that their steering committee is focused on strategic support rather than tactical micro-management, several positive dynamics emerge.

Innovation increases because teams feel empowered to try creative approaches without fear of bureaucratic interference. Problem-solving accelerates because teams address issues directly rather than waiting for formal approval processes. Communication improves because teams share challenges early, knowing that sponsors will help solve problems rather than apportion blame.

Most importantly, project teams become more accountable, not less. When people feel trusted to make appropriate decisions, they tend to make better ones. When they know that senior leaders are invested in their success rather than looking for their failures, they’re more likely to ask for help when they need it.

Making the Shift

For organisations struggling with governance effectiveness, the transition requires both cultural and structural changes. It’s not enough to simply change meeting agendas – you need to shift underlying assumptions about what good governance looks like.

Start by examining your current decision bottlenecks. What decisions are routinely escalated to steering committee level that could be made by project teams with appropriate guidance? What approvals are required that add process overhead without meaningful risk reduction?

Then look at your forward visibility. How effectively does your current governance approach identify and address future challenges? Are your steering committees reactive fire-fighting groups, or proactive problem-solving teams?

Finally, assess your organisational enablement capability. When project teams hit obstacles they cannot resolve themselves, how effectively does your governance structure mobilise senior influence and authority to clear the path?

Conclusion: Project Governance as Competitive Advantage

The organisations that get project governance right don’t just deliver projects more effectively – they build competitive advantage through superior execution capability. When steering committees focus on strategic direction, obstacle removal, and organisational enablement rather than micro-management and bureaucratic oversight, projects become vehicles for innovation rather than exercises in compliance.

The sponsor described in my reader feedback understood this instinctively.

• By asking “give me three good reasons we should continue this project” at every meeting, they ensured that projects remained strategically relevant.
• By focusing on removing tomorrow’s obstacles rather than analysing yesterday’s problems, they maximised the value of senior leadership involvement.
• By treating resource allocation as an opportunity for organisational development, they created lasting capability improvements that extended far beyond individual project success.

This isn’t just about being a better project sponsor – it’s about creating organisational cultures where ambitious initiatives can thrive. In professional services, where project-based work is increasingly central to competitive differentiation, getting governance right isn’t just operationally important – it’s strategically essential.

The question for every senior leader involved in project governance is simple: are you creating conditions for success, or are you inadvertently constraining the very capabilities you’re trying to develop? The answer might determine not just whether your current projects succeed, but whether your organisation can execute the changes needed to thrive in an increasingly project-driven economy.

Taking Action

If you’re currently struggling with project governance that feels either too controlling or too hands-off, you have two options to move forward:

Get expert support: If you’re launching a significant project and want to establish governance that genuinely enables success rather than creating bureaucratic overhead, or if you’re mid-way through a project where the steering committee dynamics aren’t working, I can help you find that governance sweet spot. Whether it’s designing decision-making frameworks, facilitating governance health-checks, or simply having a strategic conversation about what effective oversight looks like for your organisation, I specialise in making project governance both practical and powerful.

Contact me now for a no-obligation free discussion.

Start with self-assessment: For a more immediate approach, download my Ultimate Project Health Check Tool. It includes a comprehensive governance assessment that will help you identify exactly where your current approach is working well and where adjustments could make the biggest difference. The tool provides specific, actionable recommendations based on your responses, giving you a clear roadmap for governance improvements.

Both approaches can transform how your organisation delivers change – the question is simply which route feels right for your current situation.