Coaching on strong internal governance

Your partner will run their side of the project. Somebody needs to lead yours. We coach your sponsor and your team to make good decisions, and make them stick.

If you're lucky, this is the only time your business will do a project like this. That means your team probably hasn't done it before, and you need to be honest with yourself about what's needed.

Why governance matters

Most CRM projects don't fail because of the technology. They fail because decisions don't get made, or get made by the wrong people, or get quietly unmade three weeks later.

Your partner can only move as fast as your business can decide. If nobody on your side owns the project, every question becomes a meeting, every meeting becomes a delay, and every delay costs you money.

What a project sponsor really does

Being a project sponsor takes more than a big announcement at the kick-off meeting. A good sponsor stays engaged, talks to their team, talks to the partner, and makes the hard calls when nobody else can.

For many people, it's the first time they've been asked to do it. There's no manual, and the stakes are high.

What we do

• Set up your project team. Work out who needs to be involved, what they're responsible for, and how much of their time the project really needs.
• Define how decisions get made. Agree who can approve scope, budget and design decisions, and what happens when people disagree.
• Establish a rhythm. Regular check-ins, a steering group that actually steers, and status reporting that tells you something useful.
• Prepare your sponsor for the big calls. Scope, budget, timeline and trade-offs, with the questions to ask before saying yes.
• Build the relationship with your partner. Get to know their sponsor early, so you have someone to call before things go off the rails.
• Plan for risk. Identify what could go wrong on your side of the project, from busy subject matter experts to messy data, and decide what you'll do about it.
• Hold the line on scope. Help your team say "not yet" to good ideas that don't belong in phase one.

Why coaching instead of doing

We could do all of this for you. But when we leave, the knowledge would leave with us. Your CRM will never be truly "done", and your business will be living with it, improving it, and making decisions about it long after go-live.

Coaching your sponsor and your team means that capability stays in your business. As your team's confidence grows, we step back.

How you'll know it's working

Decisions get made in days, not weeks. Your partner knows who to ask. Your executives know where the project stands without having to chase anyone. And when something does go wrong, as it always does, there's a clear path to sort it out.

Talk to us about coaching your sponsor and setting up your project team.