Chapter 6 - Steering Committee and Core Team¶

Part 1¶

Story¶

The next morning John knocks at Dr. Rogers office and comes in. Dr. Rogers puts aside his notes he was preparing for the afternoon meeting: "Good morning John, can I offer you a cup of coffee?" John nods: "Yes please". Dr. Rogers stands up and goes to his coffee machine: "So, how can I help you?" "You told me about the project charter yesterday and I was long thinking about this issue. So, I did some research on it. During my research a term arose several times." Dr. Rogers hands over John a cup of coffee: "Which term do you mean?" "I noted it. It is called steering committee. What exactly is this?" "Alright, as I told you yesterday, as soon as the prioritisation of the project objectives are fixed, the project manager's role needs to be defined. But the project charter not only specifies the project manager's role in the project but also his or her role in the steering committee. Both the project manager and the customer are members of the steering committee. The steering committee should have as few members as possible and they should meet on a regular basis. If there is a necessity to make any changes within the project, they will be directly reflected in the quality, time and cost objectives and the consequences of any changes will be evident. In a nutshell, a steering committee is a committee with authorised members to which project representatives report." John at least sees the light: "Alright! And this is the reason why the steering committee's position in the stakeholder analysis is in the first quadrant?" "Exactly! Glad you brought that up. I was planning on giving you a quick review on that topic anyway. I have noticed that I have not yet told you what the project manager's or the teams' tasks are. I would like to do that now, because I have a few minutes to spare."