Understanding Your Project Sponsor: A PM’s Checklist

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Understanding Your Project Sponsor A PM’s ChecklistUnderstanding your project sponsor’s habits and perspectives can mean the difference between delivering business value and wasting time and money. To maximize your likelihood of success, here’s a checklist of key things to know about your project sponsor.

  • Preferred reporting format and style. Some sponsors want to see all the details, while others prefer an overview with links to the details if they want to dive deeper. Design project reports for your sponsor that meet their preferences.
  • Motivators and fears. Develop an in-depth understanding of your sponsor’s project objectives and primary project-related concerns. This information helps you guide the project toward their goals and avoids stressing them out by inadvertently triggering fear-based reactions.
  • Additional hot buttons. Most people have behaviors that irritate them. Some are business-related, while others aren’t. For example, a colleague had an otherwise easy-going sponsor who got upset if someone didn’t tuck their chair under the table at the end of a meeting. Identify your sponsor’s hot buttons so you can avoid strain in your relationship.
  • Schedule constraints. Regular status updates with your sponsor are typical. But you also need ad hoc meetings to work through unexpected issues. Asking a sponsor for time when they’re busy (e.g., during a weekly customer meeting) won’t go over well. Get to know their scheduling constraints and the process to get on their calendar ASAP when issues occur. Alternatively, ask the sponsor to appoint a backup when they’re unavailable.
  • Triple constraint priority. Ideally, your project will deliver to the triple constraints of time, cost and scope. Sometimes, that’s difficult, if not impossible. Work with your sponsor to identify the constraints that causes the least pain to them if it’s missed. That knowledge supports good decision-making throughout the project lifecycle. (Bonus: this knowledge also helps you build the most relevant risk plan by focusing on what impacts the sponsor and the business the most.)
  • Preferred communication method and timing. Some sponsors want to get reports before a meeting so they can review them. Others prefer an informal communication session that they facilitate. If there’s an emergency, some prefer a text message, while others want a phone call and leave a message if they can’t answer. That way, work with your sponsor runs more smoothly no matter what’s going on.
  • PM background and experience. You can identify the best ways to share information and build project artifacts when you understand your sponsor’s PM experience. For example, if their project management experience is deep but limited to finance-related projects, you should ensure that cost management methods are in place and sufficiently detailed to reassure the sponsor that costs are well-managed. If they have little PM experience, take time to guide them through all project management artifacts.
  • Knowledge of political landmines. As a project manager, you often don’t know the nuances of how senior leaders interact with one another, and the hot buttons they may have. Your sponsor can significantly reduce unintended tensions by guiding the project through these political landmines. Ask your sponsor what to do and what NOT to do so you avoid relationship issues with senior leaders.
  • Risk appetite. Your job as PM is not to avoid risk; but to manage it and inform your sponsor about the project’s risks. Sponsors might be very risk-averse or could be willing to take big risks to drive an aggressive agenda. By understanding your sponsor’s risk appetite so you can properly assess and manage risk on their behalf.

Consider creating a checklist to get to know your sponsor and keep it with your project planning template. That way, you can gather this key info in your first couple of meetings.

For more about project sponsors, check out the How to Be an Effective Sponsor course by Antonio Nieto-Rodriguez.

 

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This article belongs to the Bonnie’s Project Pointers newsletter series, which has more than 102,000 subscribers. This newsletter is 100% written by a human (no aliens or AIs involved). If you like this article, you can subscribe to receive notifications when a new article posts.

Want to learn more about the topics I talk about in these newsletters? Watch my courses in the LinkedIn Learning Library and tune into my LinkedIn Office Hours live broadcasts.

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Recovering from the Departure of a Critical Team Member

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Recovering from the Departure of a Critical Team MemberRarely do all members of a project team participate from start to finish of a project. As a result, it’s important to have a procedure ready to handle the departure of a critical team member. Here’s a template for the steps to take.

  1. Take a deep breath. Get those endorphins flowing to enhance your creativity and problem-solving skills.
  2. Mentally commit to moving forward. This is a common occurrence that project managers handle all the time. It’s not the end of the project.
  3. Consider the extent of the loss. Think about the level of experience and knowledge you’re losing. Don’t exaggerate its impact. Identify exactly what this team member brought to the table. Capture their specific contributions, decisions they made, and commitments they made to stakeholders. Pinpoint the gaps you need to fill and when. On the bright side, losing a valuable team member often prompts another person to step up.
  4. Develop the questions you need to answer and schedule a handoff session. Use the session to address pending decisions, undocumented agreements, and potential political landmines arising from their departure. Get introductions to their key contacts while they still have influence. The key here is to recognize that there might be gaps in documentation of what they know and also that their replacement doesn’t know it all.
  5. Press management for a replacement. Investigate options both internally and via contract. Prepare impact statements regarding how delaying their replacement affects the project schedule. Then, when the new team member is on board, prepare a short project brief for them that highlights wins, the current status, critical milestones, and insights from the handoff session.
  6. Pay extra attention to stakeholder management. Losing a critical staff member can rattle stakeholders. It might create political issues, as others might try to take over the influence the departing person had. Connect with key stakeholders and reaffirm their and the project team’s commitments.
  7. Adjust expectations. The departure WILL have an impact, like delays or production errors. Evaluate and share any setbacks without making them sound like a catastrophe. Develop and discuss plans to help the replacement to reduce negative impacts. If the project schedule is affected, be specific about the support you’ll need to get back on track.
  8. Diligently maintain project control documents. A team member change can require changes to control documents to make sure the team and stakeholders remain in synch. Schedules might change; new risks might result; cost might change to cover the replacement person. These changes need to be identified, monitored, and communicated to make sure perceptions of project outcomes match the new reality.
  9. Be prepared to manage emotions. Change of any type can produce emotional responses from stakeholders and team members, whether they are reactions to reduced project outcomes or disruption of a high-performing team. Start by acknowledging and validating people’s emotions and concerns. Give them the opportunity to talk about them. Help people maintain a positive outlook by focusing on the benefits of the project. Ask team members questions like “how can we address this?” or “what’s the takeaway?” to help them identify solutions.

Write up your procedure, so it’s easy to find when this challenge arises.

For more about resource management, check out Chris Croft’s Managing Resources Across Project Teams course.

 

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This article belongs to the Bonnie’s Project Pointers newsletter series, which has more than 102,000 subscribers. This newsletter is 100% written by a human (no aliens or AIs involved). If you like this article, you can subscribe to receive notifications when a new article posts.

Want to learn more about the topics I talk about in these newsletters? Watch my courses in the LinkedIn Learning Library and tune into my LinkedIn Office Hours live broadcasts.

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Are My Deliverables Ready for Stakeholder Review?

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Are My Deliverables Ready for Stakeholder ReviewTo gain buy-in and kick off organizational change practices, hold stakeholder reviews of project deliverables early in the lifecycle. That builds trust, saves time, and creates excitement for project outcomes, which promotes product acceptance. Reviewing project deliverables too early can have the opposite effect, reducing confidence and generating anxiety about change. Here’s how to ensure your project deliverables are ready for stakeholders’ scrutiny.

  • Is a deliverable more content than concept? Rough outlines, placeholders for design elements, or incomplete code logic are not enough for a stakeholder review. First impressions are important—they’re hard to overcome if they go off the rails. If you have to explain what’s going on, stakeholders might doubt the project purpose and the team’s competence or direction. Hold a stakeholder review only when the work is complete enough that no explanations are needed and the team is in synch with what’s been done so far.
  • The team agrees on the status of the deliverable. Make sure the entire team is comfortable with the deliverable and its purpose. If the team is confused or debates the scope, design, or priorities, that uncertainty will rub off on stakeholders. For a stakeholder review, you want clear agreement on what the deliverable will deliver, requirements, initial design, and priorities. The presentation should run like a well-oiled machine.
  • Assumptions are validated (that is the assumption is now a known answer). Most projects start with significant assumptions about stakeholder needs, technical feasibility, or integration approaches. It’s risky to review a deliverable when those assumptions aren’t validated, because changes to assumptions mean wasted time, rework and reduced trust.
  • Stakeholders with a “work in progress” mindset are available. You want stakeholders who are comfortable seeing works in progress, who aren’t bothered by wireframes, proofs of concept, or drafts. Don’t show unfinished prototypes to detail-oriented stakeholders. You’ll distract them from what truly matters and mess up your timeline with more stakeholder management tasks.
  • The team has defined the feedback they want. A big part of a deliverable review meeting is to get feedback on what the team has put together so far. If the team doesn’t know what input they want, that lack of focus could result in opinions that muddy rather than clarify the way forward.

Make a checklist for what needs to be in place before you schedule a stakeholder review. That way, you can be sure that the review positions a deliverable for success. 

For more about stakeholder management, check out Natasha Kasimtseva’s Managing Project Stakeholders course.

 

Coming Up

Starting a new Project Manager role comes with a lot to navigate, new teams, new expectations, and the pressure to lead early. Join Anna Anderson and I for Office Hours on Friday, January 16, 2026 @ 12pm MT/1PM CT for a live conversation on what really helps new PMs settle into their role with confidence. This session is ideal for first-time PMs, career transitioners, and recently promoted project managers. Click here to join!

 

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This article belongs to the Bonnie’s Project Pointers newsletter series, which has more than 101,000 subscribers. This newsletter is 100% written by a human (no aliens or AIs involved). If you like this article, you can subscribe to receive notifications when a new article posts.

Want to learn more about the topics I talk about in these newsletters? Watch my courses in the LinkedIn Learning Library and tune into my LinkedIn Office Hours live broadcasts.

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Why Tracking Internal Staffing Costs is Important

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Why Tracking Internal Staffing Costs is ImportantOrganizations often treat internal staffing as “free,” thinking that existing salaries don’t affect the project’s bottom line. Not so! That approach distorts the view of project viability and staff capacity and undermines the accuracy of long-term planning. Here are several ways that tracking internal staff costs is beneficial.

  • Tracking internal staff costs recognizes that time is money. A lot of money. Whether a team member is on the payroll or a contract, time is money. If an engineer spends fifty hours on a project, that’s fifty hours they aren’t working on something else. That’s often referred to as opportunity cost. An accurate picture of these time/money trade-offs is the foundation for strategic decisions about workload priority and overall spending. Tracking in-house team members’ time isn’t micromanaging; it’s understanding where your organization’s most limited resource is really going.
  • It shows the true cost of a project. Projects appear less expensive on paper when internal time isn’t counted. But considering the meetings, troubleshooting, and coordination that salaried staff handle, the “free” project resource becomes very costly. Capturing that time and effort keeps cost estimates honest and makes your reporting more credible when you must justify spending.
  • It enhances resource planning and forecasting. Tracking time spent by internal team members helps management identify who is overloaded, under-allocated, and which functions require the most effort. That data reduces guesswork and increases insight of performance. Future planning becomes sharper, and the team avoids burnout because hidden workload becomes visible.
  • It strengthens project accountability. When all project work hours are tracked, people become more aware of task switching and time spent on non-critical work. It amplifies the need for shared accountability. Time tracking helps everyone see the financial impact of their work on the bottom line, encouraging collaboration across teams.
  • It reveals the true return on investment (ROI) of a project. Without staffing costs, you can’t measure a project’s return on investment. People might think that a project was delivered under budget, but factoring in internal time can tell a different story. Tracking staffing costs supports legitimate comparisons of projects, and better decisions about where to invest the next dollar or person-hour.

For more about project finances, check out Bob McGannon’s Project Management Foundations: Budgets course.

 

Coming Up

Starting a new Project Manager role comes with a lot to navigate, new teams, new expectations, and the pressure to lead early. Join Anna Anderson and I for Office Hours on Friday, January 16, 2026 @ 12pm MT/1PM CT for a live conversation on what really helps new PMs settle into their role with confidence. This session is ideal for first-time PMs, career transitioners, and recently promoted project managers. Click here to join!

 

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This article belongs to the Bonnie’s Project Pointers newsletter series, which has more than 101,000 subscribers. This newsletter is 100% written by a human (no aliens or AIs involved). If you like this article, you can subscribe to receive notifications when a new article posts.

Want to learn more about the topics I talk about in these newsletters? Watch my courses in the LinkedIn Learning Library and tune into my LinkedIn Office Hours live broadcasts.

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