TOPIC: Project champion vs project sponsor

How can we differentiate the roles of project champion and project sponsor. Both supports the project. And what is project initiator?

Regards, R.

Dear Rachu:

Good day!

A project initiator is the person who requests for a project, hence he/she kick-starts the initiation phase of the project. For internal projects, this is usually the functional manager who will benefit from the project. The project sponsor is the person who will provide the relevant resources to carry out the project. This can be the project manager’s line manager or the functional manager who initiated the project. In short, the initiator requests for the project and the sponsor provides the money and people for the project; both initiator and the sponsor can be the same person.

The PMBOK guide doesn’t describes the role of a project champion very clearly. The project champion and the project sponsor are usually considered the same roles. In my personal view, a project champion is supposed to have comprehensive knowledge of the project and hence can act as a mentor to the project manager. In my personal opinion, a project champion is the project sponsor with comprehensive project knowledge and experience of multiple similar projects.

I hope this helps!

Warm regards,

Khurram Hussain, PMP, CSSBB

Thank you for the response. So am I correct if I say that Project Champion is more technically sound in the project as compare to Project Sponsor if the two roles are held by two different people?

Regards, R.

Dear Rachu:

In my personal opinion, yes!

Disclaimer: The PMBOK guide doesn’t make this distinction!

Regards,

Khurram Hussain, PMP, CSSBB

I know thats the reason I asked as I have seen one question on this, in one of the book.
Thanks for sharing your opinion.
Regards, R.