How to Interview Your Project Sponsor
Dec 13, 2024Some project managers are lucky enough to be handed a thorough project charter document when they’re first assigned to a project, complete with all the information they need to get the project started.
But for many of us, the process is more organic: when a sponsor brings us a project, only some of the decisions have been made about the product, service, or result our new project needs to create.
An effective interview (or series of follow-up questions) conducted by the project manager can close these decision gaps so the project manager’s real planning work can begin. When I’m approached with a partially-formed project idea, here’s how I proceed through a conversation with the sponsor to get everything I need.
Gather everything they know so far.
I start by trying to learn everything about the project that’s already in their brain. In the process of approaching me, the sponsor has already told me something about the project, but they usually know a few more things that they’ve forgotten to say or to put in their email.
These details can be elicited by responding to their initial project pitch with something like, “Great. What else?” or “Is there anything else you know so far?” Ask variations of this over and over until they finally come up with nothing more.
My journalist friend Betsy taught me that the most important question you can ask when conducting an interview for a written article comes at the end when you simply say, “Anything else?” Typically the interviewee will say “no,” but will keep talking and invariably give you the best quotes of the interview that become the star of the article.
The same applies here. After you’ve been talking to your sponsor for a while, their brain will be warmed up and emptied of everything they thought they were going to tell you. They’re now ripe to remember more details—all you need to do is ask for them.
Anything they tell you, if it’s not already recorded in documentation they’ve provided you, be sure to write it down (or have AI write it down for you, if you’ve found an AI note-taking service you’ve tested and found reliable).
Check that you have the project basics.
Once you’ve elicited everything the project sponsor can think of on their own, ask about any basic information you’ll need to run the project that you haven’t received yet.
A checklist can be helpful in this scenario, so I’ll give you one to start with. Steal my list and add your own questions that are relevant to your company or industry.
- When is the final product, service, or result due? Any intermediary deadlines? Be sure to find out what makes the deadlines meaningful (such as a promise to an external stakeholder, an external event your company wants a presence at, etc.), as this will give you an implicit sense of how flexible these deadlines may or may not be, and can help you motivate your team later by letting them know why their work and their deadlines matter.
- Does anybody besides you (presuming you’re talking to the sponsor) need to approve the final result of this project, or any parts of it along the way? You’ll need to build these critical checkpoints into the project and make sure every team member knows who will be approving their work.
- What is the budget for the overall project? Any budgetary constraints on certain parts of the project? Any unique circumstances affecting the project’s budget?
- Any risks or challenges we already know about and need to plan for?
- Any team members you’ve already secured for the project? But only ask if you think it’s a possibility they’ve done this, otherwise you may prompt them to ask you for team members they can’t get, making things unnecessarily awkward.
- Has any project work already begun?
- Any specific quality standards the project outputs will need to meet?
As you’re talking to your sponsor, you don’t want them to feel grilled. Keep a friendly tone. Also ensure them that “I don’t know” is a perfectly good answer—it just means you’ll make a note that the answer will need to be determined later in the project. Without this assurance, your sponsor may make a decision on the spot because they think you need one—missing the opportunity to make a better decision if they’d had time to think it through or talk to others.
Confirm how the project affects others.
So you’ve recorded everything the sponsor knows about the project itself and the results it needs to create. Now it’s time to discuss the ecosystem of your company and how this project fits into it. There are a few valuable angles from which to do this:
How will it affect other functions and teams?
Based on the information you now have, let your sponsor know what functions or teams will need to be involved in or consulted on the project. For example, I opened a project this week that requires our design, marketing, corporate communications, web, and video teams. Ask your sponsor if they can think of any functions the project needs that you haven’t—this is a collaborative process in which you’re working toward clarification and agreement.
For any teams or functions you work with regularly and understand well, what questions might they have, needs might they express, or suggestions might they make if they were in the room with you and the sponsor? Share these items as well. You don’t want to rob these teams of the opportunity to collaborate with the sponsor on more involved decisions, but putting basic, common needs on your sponsor’s radar at this early stage will help set expectations and make the project more efficient.
You are partially bringing up these items to make the sponsor aware, but doing so can also highlight ways you and the sponsor have slightly different visions of how the project should go or what the project needs to produce. When these differences come to the surface, explore and clarify them. Now your shared vision for the project is stronger!
How will it interact with other projects?
Sometimes project managers are aware of other ongoing endeavors at their companies that not all sponsors know about—and these may impact the new project in some way, or the new project may impact them. For example:
- Does the new project require a human or physical resource that is already committed elsewhere?
- Is the new project at odds in some way with another project already under way; for example, are both slotted to be announced to customers on the same day and risk competing for customer attention?
- Is the new project based on an assumption that something at your company will stay the same, when in reality it is scheduled to change, such as a website being rebuilt or an impending promotion that will create a vacancy in a needed skillset?
As project managers, we are rarely in a position to resolve these conflicts ourselves, but we can tee up the appropriate conversation between our sponsor and whoever has control over the other project or resources.
What other key stakeholders should I talk to?
This won’t always apply, but it is usually worth asking. Does anybody else—especially somebody with authority over some aspect of the project—have additional project information, such that they are also worth interviewing?
If so, get as much clarity as you can from the sponsor about the roles these people play, and how their roles relate to the sponsor’s role.
Then schedule an interview with them and go through approximately the steps above, but in a simplified/abbreviated way:
- Review what you’ve learned from the sponsor and ask if they have anything to add or clarify.
- Can they answer any of your basic project questions that the sponsor couldn’t, or do they believe any of the answers should be different, such that they and the sponsor will need to negotiate?
- See what they know related to their expertise and their area of the company that can flesh out the project further or that raises additional points of discussion.
I’ve written this assuming your sponsor approaches you alone and you’ll gather as much as you can from them before involving others. But it can also be appropriate and useful to clarify key stakeholders from the beginning and then have the bulk of this conversation in the room with the entire group, allowing areas of disagreement to be ironed out in real time. The better approach depends on your company structure and culture, as well as the specific personalities involved.
Start the project plan to elicit further questions.
I like to do all of the above in a single synchronous meeting if possible. But I also assume that afterward, when I take all my notes and begin to organize them into whatever project records my company uses—documents, project software records, etc.—that I will have more questions. There are questions I can’t know I have until I try to put all the details in order and find where I get stuck.
There’s no need to be hard on yourself that you didn’t think of these questions earlier. Just set expectations: let your sponsor know that after your meeting, you will start assembling the project plan and will likely follow up with a few more questions.
Sometimes I’ll list these questions in an email or send them one at a time via instant message. Sometimes I show my sponsor the records I’ve started so they have a visual way to understand my gaps. Any approach can work; they are all tools to gain clarity for the project. Once you get this last round of questions answered, you should have everything you need to complete your project plan.
This is how I proceed through interviews with sponsors to ensure the marching orders on my projects are clear. If you’re new to this type of conversation, take my framework and my tips with you, and your projects will be off to a great start!
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