How to Create a Project Steering Committee – and Why You Need One

A project steering committee can provide the extra support, guidance, and leverage to give your project an increased chance of success.

project-steering-committee

Wouldn’t it be great to have a group of influential people who meet regularly to provide support, guidance, and leverage for your complex or challenging projects?

Good news – you can.

This is your project steering committee. 

A project steering committee can go by many names, such as senior leadership team, stakeholder board, or project oversight committee.

But no matter what you call it, sometimes you need a group outside the project team providing extra support and guidance. The steering committee does that.

Your project steering committee is a group of influential people meeting regularly to provide support, guidance, and leverage to increase your project’s chance of success.

In this article, we’ll look at…

  • what a project steering committee is.
  • who’s on the project steering committee.
  • what the project steering committee does.
  • challenges project steering committees often face.

What is a Project Steering Committee?

A project steering committee is a top-level project governing body formed at the beginning of the project. It provides oversight, guidance, and support for the project from start to finish. 

Simply put, a steering committee is a group that scopes out what the customer or business needs from the project, maps out strategies and solutions, and monitors the execution of the tasks.

The steering committee doesn’t manage the project. It guides the project and provides strategic oversight. The primary goal is to ensure success, provide guidance, and ensure the project successfully reaches its goals. 

The steering committee steers the project from start to finish, providing guidance and support to ensure project success.

Who’s On the Steering Committee?

project steering committee meeting

The steering committee members are stakeholders representing different functions or areas the project impacts. The Project Manager is the only project team member on the steering committee. The members could be high-level executives or experts representing the various customer interests.

It’s important that the steering committee is made up of stakeholder representation from various areas to ensure proper coverage.

Consider each of these areas when pulling together your steering committee:

  • budgeting
  • resource allocation
  • compliance
  • the customer

Include representatives from the groups that the project will impact or benefit.

Many projects often overlook representing the end-users. You risk creating a solution that doesn’t satisfy the customer and wasting time and effort. Having the voice of the customer is critical.

It’s also key to have steering committee members who have enough seniority or authority to provide the influence needed if there are challenges or problems. 

For example, if your project is highly aligned with a strong business need, and you have a resource conflict, influential steering committee members can help you get the resources needed to keep your project on track. 

Because you’ll have a limited number of people on the committee, choose your representatives carefully. You want members who will stay engaged and continue to support you through the life of your project. 

Be sure to choose project steering committee members who will stay engaged and continue to support you through the life of your project. 

What Does a Steering Committee Do?

The primary goal of the project steering committee is to provide project oversight.

The duties and scope can vary depending on the business or group. 

You can work with the committee to get an agreement and buy-in on steering committee duties when you form the group. Otherwise, there will likely be confusion over boundaries and levels of authority in different areas. 

Even though this can vary across companies, some common steering committee responsibilities are as follows:

  • Provide strategic direction to a project 
  • Identify project goals and objectives
  • Ensure the project goals align with business and strategic objectives
  • Ensure that expenses and work effort are in alignment with stakeholder expectations
  • Set targets for achievement of goals
  • Manage project conflicts that occur across departments
  • Provide guidance to the project team
  • Monitor budget allocations to avoid overruns
  • Monitor project scope and activities 
  • Ensure adherence to timelines
  • Ensure deliverables meet the needs
  • Look out for potential risks and uncertainties that may be a threat to project success
  • Serve as an advocate for the project’s success
  • Stay informed of the project’s activities, progress, and outcomes
  • Help resolve any conflicting priorities
  • Raise issues to ensure the project continues to move forward successfully
  • Approve changes to the project scope, budget, or timeline

How to Run a Steering Committee Meeting

Now that you know the purpose, goals, benefits, and challenges of a steering committee, it’s helpful to know what happens at these meetings. 

Just like any other meeting, the group comes together with an agenda.

The project manager or the project sponsor run the meeting.

The group may do any or all of these items:

  • Review action items from previous meetings
  • Review project status shared by the project manager
  • Review budgets, deliverables, milestones shared by the project manager
  • Discuss issues or concerns 
  • Identify necessary activities (and who’s responsible) to address next steps or concerns to keep the project moving forward successfully

The goal of the steering committee is to provide support for a successful outcome. 

For example, the steering committee can provide input to things like creating a user adoption plan. If you’re rolling out a product to a large customer base, the steering committee can share ideas on the best approaches to take. They’ll have a good understanding of each of the impacted areas.

Related: How to Run a Perfect Meeting That Gets Amazing Results

Common Challenges 

Because people from different areas make up the committees, they come with different perspectives. While this is desirable, it can also lead to challenges, such as these listed below. 

1. Conflict of interest.  The very fact that there are representatives from different areas different can lead to a potential conflict of interest. If a group wants to rally for being the first adopters of a project’s solution, they may use their leverage on the steering committee to push for that. 

2. Conflict in general.  Differing viewpoints can at times lead to conflict. While conflict itself isn’t a bad thing, unhealthy and disrespectful conflict can be. As the project manager, be aware of the relationships and communication in the group to ensure that everyone communicates respectfully and project success is the primary focus of the group. 

3. Intimidation. If there are different levels of seniority on the steering committee, depending on the company culture, others may be hesitant to speak up. 

4. Delays in decision-making.  It’s rare that all group members vote the same in any decision. And having a decision-by-committee often causes decision-making to take longer. Which in turn delays action. 

5. Misunderstanding of purpose and roles. If the group members are not familiar with being a part of a steering committee, they may not be as effective as possible. You can overcome this by creating a charter and guidelines for the roles and activities of the steering committee. 

Summary

A project steering committee is focused on the project’s success. It’s not always easy to pull together a steering committee. But it can help if your project is a high-priority or complex initiative. Consider creating one to give you the extra support to further ensure your project’s success.

A previous version of this article was published on June 11, 2019

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