The steering committee is the team from within your own organisation that will make decisions in connection with the project. At the head of the steering committee should be a project champion, from your organisation. The project champion, must be someone who has these five essential attributes:
- Authority
- Time
- Influence
- Respect
- Patience
Authority to get things done, approve financial expenditure and sign off designs on behalf of the company; time to devote to the project; influence to spread enthusiasm throughout the company for the project; respect for the expertise of the design team and the patience to allow enough time to get things right. The importance of these will become clear later. The project champion will be a full-time employee of your company.
The project champion will need to appoint a project manager. This will be someone from your own company, or perhaps a professional project manager from outside. In most small and medium sized companies the project manager will be an in-house person, probably someone who has another role in the organisation, such as finance director or company secretary.
The project manager must be given sole authority to communicate decisions to the design and construction teams. This will include the power to make changes to the project as it proceeds and to resolve conflicts. Extreme confusion could follow if more than one person were to have this authority.
The project manager will therefore be at the centre of all aspects of the project. The professional team should be in direct contact with him or her.
Whoever acts as the project champion must be in a position to give the project manager the high level of attention he or she will command. It is unusual for an already busy director or manager from within the firm to have enough time or expertise to perform the roles of project champion and project manager.
Next, the project champion should assemble an internal project team, or steering committee. This group will be able to contribute to the design and development process. Each member will be expert in a particular field within your company and they will be able to contribute specialist information that will be relevant to the project. The steering committee would meet perhaps every two weeks throughout the duration of the project.
In a smaller company several of these roles may be carried out by the same person. In a larger company, more than one person from each discipline may be required. You may also wish to consider taking on external consultants in an advisory capacity if no one on the steering committee has handled a project before, or if senior management has limited time to devote to the project. The steering committee is an important group. You should stress that all members must make attendance at meetings their first priority. Disruption and delay can ensue if the steering committee meets without key members present, or if substitutes are sent along in their absence.
