Everything you need to know about the project sponsor

Every project needs at least one sponsor — a business leader who advocates for its success and clears the obstacles that could jeopardise it. Without that role, arbitration between competing priorities has no home.

What the sponsor owns

The sponsor owns the business case, secures the funding, appoints the project manager and signs off the major trade-offs. They are accountable for the benefits, while the project manager is accountable for the delivery.

Sponsor and project manager

The relationship works when escalation is fast and unambiguous: the project manager brings decisions that exceed their mandate, with options and consequences, and the sponsor decides within a known timeframe. Anything else turns escalation into delay.

Giving the sponsor the right view

Sponsors rarely need the detailed plan; they need status, risks, budget and the decisions awaiting them. FoxPlan produces that condensed view from the same data the team works on, so the report is never a separate act of rewriting.