Part 3: Why Your Project Charter Needs a Clear Sponsor and Project Lead
The Team field of the project charter
Ten weeks into the clinic’s digital intake project, the vendor presents a choice: pay extra to complete the integration on time, or move go-live back three weeks. The charter lists the Clinic Director as both Sponsor and Project Lead. The director has spent the week dealing with configuration questions and staff training. The budget decision waits while the same person tries to manage the work and provide oversight.
Part 1 of this series established why the project exists. Part 2 defined what it will and won’t deliver. Now comes the next question: who will lead the work, who can approve the decisions, and who needs to contribute? That’s the job of the Team field, the third field in the project charter 8-pack.
What this field is actually doing
The Team field names the people the project depends on and makes their responsibilities clear. A reader should be able to identify who manages delivery, who resolves issues beyond that person’s authority, and who represents each function involved.
For a smaller project or program, that structure includes a Sponsor, a Project Lead, and the Project Team. The Project Lead may also perform the Project Manager’s responsibilities. A large program has both an Executive Sponsor and a Sponsor. Larger projects and programs will have a separate Project Lead and Program Manager with supporting Project Managers. Name the roles the initiative needs and make their responsibilities clear.
Executive Sponsor: On a large program, the senior executive who owns the program strategy, maintains alignment across the enterprise, and resolves matters beyond the Sponsor’s authority. Those may include enterprise funding decisions, competing priorities across business units, or issues requiring executive intervention. The Executive Sponsor supports the Sponsor; the two titles should not be used interchangeably.
Sponsor: The business leader accountable for the project or program’s business outcome. The Sponsor secures resources, makes decisions within their approval authority, and resolves issues beyond the authority of the Project Lead or Project or Program Manager. On a smaller initiative, the Sponsor also provides the senior oversight that a separate Executive Sponsor would provide on a large program.
Project Lead: On a larger initiative with a separate Project or Program Manager, the Project Lead, sometimes called the Initiative Lead, oversees the business objectives and transformation. This person guides business requirements, process changes, and adoption so the work delivers the intended outcome. On a smaller initiative, the Project Lead may also manage day-to-day delivery.
Project or Program Manager: When this is a separate role, the manager oversees, guides, and directs the operational delivery team. They establish and maintain the overall delivery framework and governance, manage the integrated plan, and coordinate resources across functions, workstreams, vendors, and leadership levels so everyone works as one team.
The Project Lead and Project or Program Manager work closely together. The lead keeps the business outcome and transformation in focus; the manager orchestrates delivery. They assess trade-offs together and bring decisions beyond their authority to the Sponsor. The charter should state what each can decide and how they will coordinate.
Project Team: List the core team members by name and functional or technical role, including delivery partners where needed, so their contributions to the work, requirements, testing, approvals, and preparation are clear.
The Team field should also name the Executive Stakeholders and Steering Committee members, where those groups are part of the initiative. If space is limited, reference page 2 of the Charter 8-Pack for a single expanded roster of the Project Team, Executive Stakeholders, and Steering Committee, showing each person’s name, role, and the area they represent.
The charter should make the decision path clear. The Project Lead and, where separately assigned, the Project or Program Manager bring issues beyond their authority to the Sponsor. On a large program, the Sponsor escalates to the Executive Sponsor when a decision exceeds the Sponsor’s authority.
The common mistake of combining the Sponsor and Project Lead
Here’s the pattern. Whoever championed the project gets listed as both Sponsor and Project Lead. They understand the business need, helped secure approval, and seem like the obvious person to run it.
The difficulty appears when daily delivery competes with business oversight. Configuration questions need answers now. A resource conflict or budget trade-off needs time to consider the wider impact. When one person carries both roles, the urgent work can crowd out the decisions needed to keep the project moving.
Assign different people to these roles wherever practical. The Project Lead needs a Sponsor who is available to make decisions and clear obstacles. If a small organization must combine the roles, agree who will review significant changes and how those decisions will be made. Simply listing the same name twice does not address the capacity or oversight gap.
Another mistake is naming departments without identifying their representatives. “Billing” tells you which function is involved. “Priya Shah, Billing Supervisor, responsible for confirming billing data requirements” tells you whom to contact and what contribution to expect.
Four questions that build a useful Team field
Use the same approach as the first two fields: answer plain questions, then assemble the charter entry.
Who is the Sponsor, and what can they approve? Confirm responsibility for the business outcome, access to resources, and availability to resolve issues. For a large program, also name the Executive Sponsor and state which decisions require executive escalation.
Who leads the business transformation, and who manages delivery? On a smaller initiative, one Project Lead may cover both. On a larger initiative with separate roles, name the Project Lead and Project or Program Manager, distinguish their responsibilities, and confirm how they will coordinate decisions and escalate issues.
Who must contribute work or approvals? Identify a named representative for each required function or delivery partner, with a brief description of their responsibility.
Who will use the result, and who represents their needs? Include people who can validate requirements, test the new process, and help their colleagues prepare for the change. These people are members of the ‘extended project team’ – called upon a specific times to assist with discovery session, reviews, testing in a fractional resource capacity.
Confirm these responsibilities with the people involved before the charter is finalized. A name on the page is useful only when that person understands the role and has agreed to contribute.
What this looks like in practice
Back to the clinic. The problem is duplicate patient records and slow check-in caused by paper-based intake across three locations. The approved scope covers digital intake configuration, integration with the existing records system, and staff training. Automated insurance pre-authorization remains outside this phase.
This is a smaller project, so it needs a Sponsor rather than separate Sponsor and Executive Sponsor roles. Maria will serve as Project Lead and perform the Project Manager’s responsibilities; a separate manager is not being assigned. Its Team field could read:
Sponsor: Dr. Joseph, Clinic Director. Accountable for the business outcome, budget decisions within the clinic’s approval limits, and resolving resource conflicts across the three locations.
Project Lead: Maria Chen, Office Operations Manager. Responsible for the rollout plan, coordination, status reporting, and escalating decisions to Dr. Joseph.
Project Team: James Oduya, Lead Front Desk Coordinator, represents intake staff across all three sites and coordinates workflow testing; Priya Shah, Billing Supervisor, confirms billing data requirements and participates in testing; Tom Reyes, EHR Vendor Implementation Contact, delivers the technical integration.
Front desk and billing staff are the primary users of the new process. James and Priya represent their needs and help coordinate testing and training. Any required patient-data compliance reviewer should also be named, with the approval responsibility made clear.
Now the vendor’s budget question has a defined path. Maria confirms the additional cost, the schedule impact, and the options, then sends Dr. Joseph a recommendation. Dr. Joseph makes the decision within the Sponsor’s approval authority or seeks the required higher approval. Maria updates the plan and communicates the outcome to the Project Team.
The charter cannot guarantee a quick decision. It can make clear who owes the answer and how to reach them.
A habit worth watching for
It’s easy to name the people doing visible delivery work and overlook someone whose approval is needed later. For the clinic, that could be the person who must approve how patient information will be handled before configuration is finalized.
Ask each functional representative what reviews or approvals their work requires. Name those contributors early and distinguish ongoing team responsibilities from occasional reviews. Do the same for vendors: identify the delivery contact and the work they are responsible for, rather than listing only the company name. Typically, you can add these discovery items to the Parking Lot / Project Action Item List and then dive deeper for the details during the very first Discovery sessions (in Project Planning).
The Team field also provides a starting point for a more detailed RACI, which identifies who is Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, and Informed for specific activities and decisions. Keep the charter concise; use the RACI to develop the detail during planning. It should be noted that in this example, the project lead is most likely not a trained or experienced project manager. Therefore, they will require assistance from the organization PMO or a project manager resource. Also, having a project manager be the project lead is another option on how to effectively combine roles. It is important to review the scope of work and match skill sets accordingly.
Practical takeaway
Before you finalize this field, pick one likely decision that exceeds the authority of the Project Lead or Project or Program Manager. Can you identify who will approve it, what information they need, and where it goes if it exceeds their authority too?
If the Project Lead and Project or Program Manager are separate people, check that their responsibilities and decision authority are clear to both. Then check the Project Team list. Each entry should identify a person, their contribution, and their agreement to take on the role. Resolve any missing ownership before the charter goes for sign-off.
At this stage, you have:
1) Stakeholder roster
2) Steering Committee roster
3) Project Team roster
4) Extended Project Team roster
These all stack up in layers, with the Project Team on the first floor, Steering Committee on the second floor, Stakeholder Committee on the third and top floor of your Governance Framework. The escalation path from the project team upwards is part of governance, and strategy / key decisions from the top are communicated down thru the framework. This is the foundation of your project/program and the formal documentation of governance.
What comes next
With the problem defined, the boundaries drawn, and responsibilities agreed, the next question is what success looks like. That’s Field 4, Goal Statement and Primary Deliverable. Part 4 will show how to turn an ambition like “improve patient experience” into a clear outcome the team can work toward and assess.
Download the Team Quick Reference
Ready to put this into practice? Use the Team Quick Reference to work through the four questions, distinguish sponsorship from daily delivery, and name the Project Team on your next charter.
