It is all too common for significant digital transformation (DX) projects, such as an ERP system implementation, to begin with no thought for assembling a steering committee. Typically, it’s only after months of challenges in maintaining focus on project goals, experiencing delays, or encountering disagreements on business-critical decisions that companies recognize the need for a steering committee. They hastily form a steering committee and then wonder why it isn’t providing much value.

This reactionary approach is a recipe for disaster with the potential for risking the health of the entire project. However, all this can be easily avoided with minimal upfront preparation.

In this article, we will discuss who should be involved on the committee, what the steering committee’s main roles and responsibilities are, and how to equip each member to be effective in their role. We will also examine what a steering committee meeting might look like and what is required for effectively leading it.

Without a strong committee that is unified behind the same vision, a project is doomed to wander, likely never to reach the intended destination. Let’s take a look at the key considerations for building an effective steering committee.

What Is a Steering Committee?

A steering committee is a group of key decision-makers and experts who – as the name suggests – are responsible for steering the project(s) to the desired destination. This committee plays a crucial role in making decisions that shape the project’s outcome and determine whether it will meet the defined business goals.

It’s important to determine who will be responsible for steering the project to success at the time when you are building the rest of the project team. Throughout the implementation, the steering committee will guide the project around roadblocks, along risk-strewn paths, and through many crossroad junctions. They will provide the perspective, expertise, and authority to ensure the project remains on the path to success.

Without the strategic direction of a steering committee, projects face challenges in prioritizing tasks, managing risks, and addressing potential roadblocks. Misalignment with business goals and fragmented decision-making are common symptoms of projects without a steering committee. Moreover, neglecting to build an effective steering committee hampers effective organizational change management, risking poor stakeholder engagement and increased resistance to change.

Building an Effective Steering Committee

Building a steering committee that will serve your project well and guide it to completion requires strategic consideration regarding the number of members, their characteristics and their roles. The ideal number of steering committee members will depend on the size of your organization and the expected impact of the project.

For a smaller organization that is implementing a CRM system, the steering committee could be as small as 3 or 4 individuals. For a larger organization that is implementing a new ERP system, the steering committee could be as large as 8 to 12 individuals. A committee comprised of more than 12 members is going to find it challenging to make efficient and effective decisions.

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A steering committee member should possess these important characteristics:

  • The authority to make decisions which impact the direction of the business.
  • An ability to think strategically.
  • The ability to embrace change and a willingness to champion that change across the organization.
  • An understanding of the long-term goals of the organization and alignment to those goals.
  • A willingness to invest time into the project and the ability to make the project a top priority.

To build a well-rounded steering committee, it will also be important to ensure the following is covered by one or more of the members:

  • Someone who is involved in the day-to-day activities of the project and has a deep understanding of the current risks and issues.
    • This is often covered by a senior project manager as well as the project sponsor, both participating on the steering committee.
  • Someone who has experience with the type of project being conducted who can provide best practice information and risk mitigation recommendations.
    • This is often covered by an outside expert the organization hires to participate in the steering committee.
  • Somone who can effectively facilitate steering committee meetings by leading the conversation toward meaningful decisions.

Often, companies are hesitant to put senior leadership team members on a steering committee due to their extensive responsibilities and limited availability. However, it’s important to remember that an effective steering committee plays a pivotal role in driving the project. Their decisions will impact which business goals will be met by this project. If senior leadership team members who are not involved in the steering committee override decisions made by that committee, it is a steering committee by name only and the project will quickly be derailed. These projects are intended to be transformational to the business. As such, they should be overseen or “steered” by the individuals responsible for that area of the business.

Equipping the Steering Committee for Success

Once the steering committee has been established, the first order of business is to achieve alignment with the business goals that have been defined as the project’s success criteria within the project charter. The steering committee should have the opportunity to review and discuss the success criteria to ensure each member is fully aligned. If there is any disagreement with the defined criteria, this must be resolved before the project moves forward any further.

After the committee is fully aligned with the vision for the project and the defined criteria, these criteria should not change for the remainder of the project unless there is a major shift in the overall business objectives.

The next step to equipping the steering committee for success is to educate each member on their duties and responsibilities on the committee. Each member will need to commit to fulfilling these responsibilities:

  • Oversee the project and verify it will meet the defined business objectives.
  • Resolve conflicts in requirements or decisions between Business Process Owners (BPOs).
  • Work with BPOs to make key business and/or design decisions.
  • Review quality audits and provide approval on moving the project into the next stage.
  • Mitigate project risks.
  • Remove project roadblocks.
  • Hold the project team accountable to following the approved project management plan.
  • Make the Go/No-Go decision.

Each member must understand how they will effectively fulfill these responsibilities. We highly recommend that every steering committee undergoes some training in the available project tools, project data, project methodology, and the characteristics of effective steering committee meetings. This additional context and training will equip them to make informed decisions, enhancing their effectiveness.

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Lastly, all steering committee team members must agree to prioritize their involvement in the project. Usually, this involvement includes regular participation in steering committee meetings, prompt completion of follow-up tasks, meetings with BPOs to facilitate decision-making, and review of project status reporting. Each member is critical to the success of the entire committee. If even one member is limited in his or her involvement, it will derail the effectiveness of the committee and, ultimately, the project.

Leading an Effective Steering Committee Meeting

For maximum impact, steering committees should meet on a regular basis. The frequency and duration of these meetings will depend on the complexity of the project and may even change throughout the life of the project. We recommend a minimum of an hour meeting once a month, however, during a critical period of a large project, it could be as much as a two-hour meeting every other week.

The facilitator of the meeting should have a thorough understanding of the project’s current status and be able to offer additional insights on agenda items. It is also important that the facilitator possess strong leadership abilities and is able to confidently drive meetings and keep a group of leaders on-track and moving towards solutions.

An effective steering committee meeting is not just a status update for the committee but should be an avenue for mitigating risks and making decisions. If there are no follow-up tasks and no documented decisions coming out of these meetings, the meetings are not effective, and the format should be changed. While the format may look different depending on the makeup of the committee and/or the current stage of the project, here are the key topics that should be addressed in a steering committee meeting:

Providing Context: A Brief Project Status Update

Since not all steering committee members will be involved in the day-to-day activities of the project, it is important to give a brief status update. This could include some key activities that were completed since the last meeting, any changes to scope that occurred, key milestones that were reached (or missed) and what’s upcoming.

Often, it’s helpful to provide stoplight reporting of each area of the project like timeline, budget, scope, and business objectives as well as an overall status. This gives the committee a quick look at the overall health of the project.

This update should remain brief, and the committee should refrain from covering details on specific items such as meetings and design decisions at this time.

Preventing Roadblocks: Review Top Risks

A critical role of the steering committee is to mitigate project risks. Reviewing the top risks is an essential element of the meetings. This involves more than just a status update on current risks, however. The steering committee should have a detailed discussion of any new risks and make sure they are aligned on the mitigation steps, complete with assignments of any follow-up tasks.

The members should hold each other accountable to the follow through on the mitigation steps, and any risks that have not had any positive movement towards mitigation should be addressed at this time.

Reducing Impact: Address Active Issues

Issues are any risks that were not properly mitigated. The steering committee should be actively working to address these issues and limit the impact on the project. Again, follow-up tasks will likely come out of this discussion and there should be accountability to completing these in a timely manner.

Driving Outcomes: Make Key Decisions

As the project progresses, various types of decisions that are pivotal to project outcomes will arise. These key decisions should be presented to the steering committee at this time. While it may not be feasible to make the decision in the meeting, the committee members should ensure they fully understand the decision that needs to be made and its impact.

It is important that the relevant business process owners participate in the discussion as well. This may require a separate meeting between the BPO and one or more steering committee members to brief them on the full details of what needs to be decided. Alternatively, if the key decision will be made during the steering committee meeting, the BPO should attend that particular meeting to have the opportunity to provide their opinion and be part of the decision-making process.

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The Strategic Advantage of Effective Steering Committees

An effective steering committee is critical to the success of a project. Without steering committee members that are aligned and equipped, a project will be very unlikely to achieve the business goals it is intended to achieve. By achieving alignment, commitment, and active participation from each member, the steering committee will be well positioned to provide oversight, facilitate critical decisions, and mitigate risks.

Regular, well-structured, and effective meetings serve not only as a platform for project status updates, but also as a critical forum for decision-making and problem-solving. Ultimately, the goal of the steering committee is to align project objectives with business strategies, ensuring that each project meets its immediate milestones while also contributing to the long-term success of the organization. The steering committee is not just a regulatory body, but a strategic asset that can drive project success and, by extension, organizational growth.

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About the Author

Adele Graser is the Chief Operating Officer of Victoria Fide Consulting. For more than 13 years she has worked to help companies implement complex solutions and make significant, disruptive business process changes. One of Adele’s greatest passions is to enable people and organizations to realize their full potential. Her approach with consulting is to not only help design solutions that follow generally accepted best practices, but to also help team members understand and take ownership of those solutions. She has a great mix of visionary, detail oriented, and communication strengths that allow her to see the big picture, translate that into a tactical plan, and communicate the vision to many different levels of an organization.

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