A project steering committee needs six to eight people: a sponsor from the executive team who makes the final call, the business heads whose teams will use the system, the CIO, the CFO for budget, the vendor's project director, and a secretary or PMO who keeps the decision log. It meets once a month, plus an extra session whenever a threshold written in advance is crossed. The sponsor only settles business-versus-IT disagreements that span both domains, using a rule the charter set before the first dispute; inside a single domain, whoever owns that domain decides.
Picture a services group rolling out a CRM to its sales force. If nobody wrote down, before kickoff, who settles disputes between the sales director and IT, the first request for an extra feature stays open for three meetings in a row while the team builds on assumptions nobody signed off.
Does your steering committee decide, or does it only inform?
Take the latest minutes and, next to each item, write who decided and what, in one sentence. If no name comes to mind, the item was information, even if it took twenty minutes of the meeting.
If most items end with "presented" or "to be followed up", your committee mostly informs, and the real decisions happen somewhere else, in corridors or email threads, with no record. Then put the previous minutes alongside. Any item that was already there without a conclusion has been holding the project back for at least a month.
Do you need a project committee as well as a steering committee?
Yes. The two bodies do different jobs. The steering committee decides anything that commits the company, which means budget, scope, milestones and go-live. The project committee meets weekly with the project directors from both sides and settles everything below the charter's thresholds. The vendor advises there, but any budget reallocation is decided on the client side. Business workshops agree the business rules with the people who will apply them.
All three exist only for the life of the project, which is what separates them from permanent IT governance built on ITIL or COBIT. Without the weekly layer, the steering committee drowns in operational detail and stops arbitrating.
Who should sit on the steering committee, and who should stay out?
One question settles it, asked name by name: if this person objects, does the decision change? If yes, they sit on the committee. If not, they get the minutes within 48 hours, even if they are on the executive team. A fifteen-person steering committee has usually mixed decision-makers with people who only needed the minutes, so nobody dares make a call in front of a full room.
PRINCE2 is a useful reference here. Its project board has three roles. The executive is ultimately accountable for the project and makes the main decisions, supported by the senior user, who specifies what the users need, and the senior supplier, who represents the people who design, develop, procure and implement the deliverables.
In a large company, in Morocco or elsewhere, the sponsor plays the executive, the business heads play the senior user, and the CIO and the vendor's project director together cover the senior supplier. Add the CFO as well, because a financial view given in the room saves a second approval loop.
The sponsor attends in person, or decisions wait another month. The project team stays out (they come in to present an item and leave), and so do the vendor's account manager and any deputy without delegated authority.
How often should it meet, and what triggers an extra session?
Monthly works for most projects, provided every date is set at kickoff. A committee that has to be scheduled each time ends up being skipped. During acceptance testing and cutover, move to a meeting every two weeks.
The sponsor calls an extra session within five working days when any of five triggers occurs: an escalation threshold is crossed, go-live is at risk, a disagreement has been stuck in the project committee for more than ten working days, a core team member leaves, or there is a security incident. With these triggers written in advance, a problem found the day after a session does not wait four weeks.
Who arbitrates when the business and IT disagree?
The sponsor does, but the rule they apply has to be written before the first conflict. Written mid-dispute, it reads as a ruling for one side, and the losing side will reopen it at every meeting.
The charter therefore splits the domains between members. The business decides the what, meaning needs, priorities, business rules and acceptance testing. IT decides the how: architecture, security, integration and future operations. Its veto covers only security and regulatory compliance, and it must give its reasons in writing. The CFO says whether an option fits the budget envelope, and the vendor prices each option in days and budget. As long as a disagreement stays inside one domain, whoever owns that domain settles it.
When it spans two domains, it goes to the steering committee with costed options. The sponsor then decides on three criteria written in advance, namely the project objective, the budget envelope and the go-live date.
What goes in the steering committee charter?
The charter below is ready to copy and adjust. Treat the thresholds as starting points, set yours at kickoff, then leave them alone.
Members and roles
| Member | Role in the meeting | Rights |
|---|---|---|
| Sponsor, from the executive team | Owns the objective and budget, signs off go-live | Final decision |
| Business heads, one to three | Bring needs, priorities and acceptance testing | Decide the what |
| CIO | Owns architecture, security and integration | Decides the how, reasoned veto on security and compliance |
| CFO or delegated financial controller | Presents committed and paid budget | Mandatory opinion on budget |
| Vendor project director | Presents progress, prices the options | Advisory |
| Secretary or PMO | Sends the pack, keeps the log | None |
Decision rights and escalation thresholds
| Topic | Who decides | Deadline |
|---|---|---|
| Slip of up to ten working days on one phase | Project committee, steering informed | Within the week |
| Reallocation of up to 2% of the envelope between phases | Client project director, in the project committee | Within the week |
| Business rule with no budget or date impact | Business workshop | Within the week |
| Anything above those thresholds, milestone sign-off, change visible to users | Steering committee | Next regular meeting |
| Disagreement spanning two domains | Sponsor, in steering committee | Next regular meeting |
| Over 8% of the envelope, cumulative changes included, or a go-live slip | Sponsor, in an extra session | Within five working days |
| Go-live | Sponsor, after the steering committee's opinion | Planned date |
| Overrun of the total envelope, stopping the project | Executive committee | Per your delegation of authority |
Cadence and quorum
- Regular meeting: monthly (every two weeks during acceptance testing and cutover), 60 minutes, dates set at kickoff.
- Extra session: within five working days, on a crossed threshold, go-live at risk, a disagreement stuck in the project committee for more than ten working days, a core team member leaving, or a security incident.
- Quorum: the sponsor or a delegate named in writing, one business head and the CIO. Without quorum, the meeting goes ahead but decides nothing.
Pack sent 48 hours ahead
- Schedule: planned milestones, milestones reached, revised forecast.
- Budget: envelope, committed (signed orders), paid (settled invoices), cumulative accepted changes.
- Risks: top five, each with an owner and a dated action.
- Decisions needed: one page per decision, options costed in days and budget, recommendation.
- Follow-up: status of previous decisions.
60-minute agenda and decision log
| Minutes | Item |
|---|---|
| 0 to 5 | Quorum, previous minutes |
| 5 to 15 | Questions on schedule and budget (pack already read) |
| 15 to 40 | Decisions needed, heaviest first |
| 40 to 50 | New risks and escalations |
| 50 to 55 | Secretary reads back the decisions taken |
| 55 to 60 | Closed session without the vendor |
The last five minutes, among company members only, are for discussing the vendor's performance. Written into the charter from day one, that closed session reads as routine rather than a sign of distrust.
Each decision gets one line in the log, with the columns of the example table further down. The pack takes far less time to put together when the schedule and budget come out of a dashboard connected to your management systems rather than spreadsheets retyped the night before.
Five changes of 2% each clear the reallocation threshold one by one and still add up to 10% of the envelope, which is why the 8% threshold counts changes cumulatively. The contract can hold back the same drift, and the piece on where a bug fix ends and a new feature begins shows how a catalogue of standard requests priced in advance saves renegotiating each change.
If you want an outside read of your charter before it goes to the committee, our digital consulting team can go through it with you in a free first conversation.
What does the sponsor decide when sales wants a new feature mid-testing?
A fictional case: every figure is an assumption.
The services group from the introduction is rolling out a CRM to its 150 salespeople on a nine-month project. In month four, the sales director asks for every signed deal to create the customer account in the ERP automatically. IT objects, not wanting to touch the ERP's customer master interface in the middle of acceptance testing.
The project committee prices three options with the vendor. Option A automates the full account creation for 5% of the envelope and a three-week go-live delay. Option B pushes it to phase 2: nothing to spend now, but sales administration keeps retyping each deal into the ERP for three more months. Option C, by contrast, keeps the automatic sync for phase 2 and, until then, adds an account-creation form that sales administration checks and imports into the ERP once a day, for 1.5% of the envelope and no change to the date.
As option A would move go-live, the item goes to an extra session. The business argues for A, IT for B, and the CFO confirms C fits within the project contingency. The sponsor picks C six working days after the request, and the log keeps this line.
| No. and date | Decision | Rejected | Decided by | Reason | Effect | Execution | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| D-017, month 4 | Account form imported daily, ERP sync moved to phase 2 | A, B | Sponsor | Protects the date and the ERP interface | 1.5%, date unchanged | Vendor, four weeks | In progress |
Six months on, when a new sales director asks why the ERP sync arrived after go-live, that line answers the question without reopening the debate.
FAQ
- Can the sponsor send someone in their place?
Occasionally, if the delegation is in writing, names the person and carries the authority to decide on the items on the agenda. A stand-in who has to "check with the boss" first cannot decide in the room, and every decision slips a month. If the sponsor misses one meeting in three, the executive team should appoint a different sponsor.
- What happens when there is no quorum?
The meeting still takes place to share progress and risks, but it makes no decisions. Pending decisions move to an extra session within five working days, and the secretary records the absence in the log. Two meetings in a row without quorum go to the executive committee, because by then the project has lost the people who were supposed to own it.
- How is an IT project steering committee different from the executive committee?
The executive committee runs the company over time and covers every subject. An IT project steering committee covers one project, ends with it, and decides only within the budget envelope and scope the executive team gave it. The sponsor, often a member of the executive committee, links the two.
Sources
- Knowledge Train, PRINCE2 roles and responsibilities: project board roles.
- ProjectManager, Project Board in PRINCE2: project board composition.
Last verified: 1 November 2026.
Before the next disagreement reaches the room, have the sponsor adopt the decision-rights table and the escalation thresholds at your next committee meeting.
