What's the right pace for steering bodies?

Steering committees are fundamental to the development and sustainability of all your projects. They are numerous and play an essential role in monitoring your projects and managing change. Indeed, in these times of great change, the pace has accelerated prodigiously. A strategic project that is difficult to manage obviously needs to be monitored more closely than an "ancillary" project of lesser difficulty.
Similarly, a project with a high frequency of deliverables (at least 1/week) requires closer attention. This is in contrast to a project with monthly milestones. Then, a "short" project (less than 2 months) does not allow us to delay the detection of a drift.

In this article, you will find information on the steering bodies that you absolutely must know about:

What are the different governance and steering bodies?
What major challenges issues can these project governance bodies address?
How often do they meet?
What expectations do they meet?
How and when to plan them?

Set the pace for your project management meetings

We distinguish 3 types of instances based on different temporalities:

Planned meetings:
These are held in direct connection with a project milestone. In most cases, they are held to validate a project milestone. They are also planned in response to requirements, benchmarks, "stage and gate" or "Prince 2" projects.
Recurring meetings:
These are organized on a regular basis. For example, steering committees meet on a monthly basis. They set the pace for the life of the project and provide a stimulating tempo: "You have to go to the steering committee having done your bit... otherwise the project won't move forward!
Extraordinary meetings:
Extraordinary meetings can also be convened to deal with special circumstances.
Quite simply, because the life of a project is sometimes marked by events requiring exceptional decisions that cannot wait any longer. In such cases, an exceptional committee is convened, with a view to "crisis management". This requires the committee to deploy a new logic of action.

What are the different steering bodies and how often do they meet?

First of all, we generally identify two types of authority. On the one hand, we have "project bodies", and on the other, "project portfolio bodies". Both meet specific expectations and frequency of meetings.

Project bodies :

Themes	What the court said	Frequency	Examples
Operational	Day-to-day" project management. We identify difficulties encountered and new tasks to be carried out.	Daily or Weekly	Project committee Daily meeting Site meeting
Tactics	Management of major project sequences. Tasks are identified and scheduled.	Monthly End of phase	Committee schedule Progress review Retrospective / Sprint launch
Strategic	Project contract management. We ensure that projects are in line with the project contract (scope, deadlines, cost), and we formalize amendments to project contracts if changes are necessary.	Monthly Quarter	Steering Committee Program Committee

Project portfolio bodies :

Themes	What the proceedings have in store	Current frequency	Examples
Go / No Go project	When decisions are made to launch projects. When trade-offs are made between the demands made by stakeholders.	Quarter Semester Year	Investment Committee Management Committee
Operational	Operational management of projects, integrating the effects of adherence to other projects. Information gathering and decision-making body.	Bi-weekly Monthly	Project review Project portfolio review
Budget	Allocation of financial resources to portfolio projects. Arbitration on requests for decisions from steering committees.	On schedule to meet budget deadlines Quarter Semester Year	Budget preparation Forecast magazine
Strategic	Structured as a strategic project. Progress report to the Executive Committee or General Management. Information and decision-making body.	At launchHalf-yearly or annual management review	Program Committee Roadmap Committee Strategic Planning Committee
Resource	Allocation of human resources to projects / Staffing decisions. HRD may be involved for projects involving training and recruitment.	Weekly (this is the case for service companies, for example) Monthly	Production Committee Staffing Committee Assignment committee

How do you manage your project governance bodies?

Discover the software in video Project Monitor

The "ingredients" for good project management

Anticipate project phases:
Know where you're starting from and where you're going.
What is the clearly defined trajectory?
Can you measure the project's rate of progress?
Clearly define inspection frequencies:
Identify the relevant steering bodies
Define monitoring sensors :
This will enable us to know how the project is progressing, and to define action levers to modify or correct the current trajectory.

Any piloting activity must take them into account. Whether it's a multinational company, a fighter jet or a project. Piloting is the action that transforms measurement into correction, with decisions taken by the pilot and subsequent actions.

Focus on the project steering committee

The Project Steering Committee (Comité de pilotage d'un projet - Copil) is a key player in project management.
It is made up of a cross-functional project team with two main missions:
- to ensure that projects run smoothly
- to validate strategic choices

The Copil is generally made up of competent representatives from the company or local authority departments directly involved in the project. At all times, this steering committee takes the necessary steps to ensure that the project achieves its objectives. Its role is also to monitor the project's progress at all times.

This steering body plays a key role in the management of large-scale projects.
It acts as an intermediary between the company's strategic and operational steering bodies.
This body gives a strong impetus to all project managers.

It decides on the scope of projects based on the following elements:

Progress
Achievements
Difficulties
Possible choices