Achieving strategic benefits from project investments: Appoint a project owner

摘要

Even though we have gotten better at meeting the iron triangle of cost, time, and scope, many projects still do not achieve the strategic benefits-especially those that are nonmonetary-desired in most contemporary projects. Given that no one is specifically accountable for delivering these benefits, it should be no surprise that these projects are largely unsuccessful. We consider multiple possible candidates for this role of accountability-the CEO, the project manager, the sponsor, and the program manager-and find none of them acceptable, thereby necessitating the formalization of a new role: a project owner. The project owner would be accountable for delivering the strategic benefits desired from each project. In this article, we describe the responsibilities of the project owner at each phase of the project, the sources for candidates to fulfill this role, and the training needed for project owners to find success. We conclude with a case study of an organization that has taken this route and discuss the advantages and challenges that resulted from its strategic organizational change initiative. (C) 2019 Kelley School of Business, Indiana University. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.