Nervous for an upcoming StC meeting? Here’s what you need to know!
Are you preparing for a steering committee presentation and want to make sure you get it right?
When it comes to steering committee presentations, you want to make sure you’re making the best use of their time.
So, here are some guidelines to follow to ensure productive and effective steering committee meetings that benefit your project, and everyone involved.
Quick Answers
What is a steering committee presentation?
A steering committee presentation is an update for senior executives that highlights project progress, risks, decisions required, and alignment with strategic goals. It focuses on outcomes as well as any decisions or support that may be required by the committee.
What is a steering committee?
A steering committee, or an StC, is a committee made up of senior executives that are there to help support the project. To fully understand what they are, why you need one, and their roles and responsibilities, go here: What is a Steering Committee?
Why is it important to “wow” your steering committee?
Steering committee meetings are opportunities to remove any roadblocks in the project. Effective presentations also demonstrate leadership and confidence on project direction.
What should you include in your steering committee update?
Include clear reminders of scope and priorities, concise status updates, visual metrics (like stoplight progress indicators), key risks, and specific actions or approvals you’re requesting.
Purpose of a steering committee meeting
Let’s start off with this quick reminder: Your steering committee is there to help you remove roadblocks and ensure you’re aligned with company strategy. Keep this purpose in mind as you go through your steering committee presentation, because it will help you ensure that your presentation is relevant and effective.
Key project reminders
This is the first important item in your presentation.
It’s always important to review key project reminders. This includes things like your scope statement, priority matrix, roles and responsibilities, and your overall project timeline.
Essentially, you want to review the most critical aspects of the project to remind everybody what they all agreed to. Reviewing these core aspects of the project will ensure that when challenges arise, everyone is on the same page.
Project update
When giving the project update, I find that the most effective and efficient way to convey all the necessary information is to use a stoplight system. This keeps your project update short and sweet while still providing all the necessary information.
What is the stoplight system?
The stoplight system means you associate a stoplight colour with each deliverable to indicate the progress on that aspect of the project. Here are all the stoplight symbols and what they mean:
- Green: Everything is on track!
- Yellow: This gives the steering committee a heads up that there is potential risk, but your project team is working on it. It’s important to let them know HOW you’re resolving the issue, but the yellow stoplight just gives them a heads up that you might need their help if all still doesn’t go according to plan.
- Red: The colour red symbolizes that there is an issue that you need to escalate – you need help from your steering committee!
What else to keep in mind
There’s a lot more that you need to keep in mind before making a steering committee presentation that hasn’t been outlined in this article. Instead, I made a video that goes into each of these points in detail and provides you with additional information you need to make your steering committee presentation a success.
So, head over to YouTube with me and we’ll finish this conversation there!
Meanwhile, if you really are committed to mastering your next project, do consider taking my SLAY Project Management online course where I show you step-by-step how to successfully manage a project, plus you get access to every template you will need, along with detailed video instructions on how to fill them out.
FAQ – Steering Committee Presentations
The main purpose is to align project efforts with organizational strategy, remove obstacles, and make decisions that ensure projects stay on track toward goals.
Start by watching the video at the top of this page. Be concise and focus on high-level versus every little detail, use visual , and clearly state what decisions you’re asking from the steering committee, and if decisions are made in the meeting, be sure to summarize them in an email after.
