Steering Committee Presentation Template (Example)

As a project manager, if you're passionate about your job, there's one task you surely hold dear: presenting the project's progress to the steering committee.

The steering committee meeting — the "SteerCo," as it's often called for short — takes place roughly once a month and is a golden opportunity to share the project's latest progress with stakeholders and put your team in the spotlight.

A good project manager knows that anticipation and preparation are essential values that lead to a successful SteerCo.

What is a steering committee?

When steering a project involves high stakes, a complex level of technicality, or a large number of people, creating a steering committee to ensure sound project management becomes the project manager's number-one priority.

Just another project status meeting?

A steering committee meeting is much more than a simple meeting between the decision-making bodies and the operational teams in charge of executing the project. In cross-functional project management, the project manager's position is not that of a line manager. They therefore cannot arbitrate the trade-offs on resources, deadlines or quality that fall outside their remit.

A power relay within the company

The steering committee (or SteerCo) is therefore a key component of a project's success. It's an essential power relay whose role is to track the project, analyze its progress and make the final decisions at the end of the meeting.

The steering committee must ensure that the decision-making process addresses the challenges the team in place is tackling, and that the team can meet them within the allotted time.

How are steering committees formed?

The SteerCo is formed at the start of the project by the sponsor, in collaboration with the project manager. In practice, steering committee members are decision-makers (shareholders, business angels, managers…) able to make the trade-offs needed to drive the project, along with business experts who have hands-on experience of the project and live it day to day.

The exact role of steering committee meetings

It's an ultra-effective tool for collective decision-making, designed to give new momentum to your high-stakes projects and to tackle a "burning" issue whose key must be found to reach the objectives set. Note that the sponsor and management must be informed of the SteerCo agenda well in advance. They should not be discovering the content of ongoing matters during the meetings.

The sponsor is the project manager's ally within the steering committee. On a project, they must hold enough information upstream to be able to advise the teams, whatever phase the project is in.

The roles are clearly defined — each player has their own:

• the sponsor sells the project: yes, you have to keep rallying people continuously!
• the steering committee members have given their opinion and their advice
• the project manager will have to execute the decisions made

What is the steering committee's main challenge?

On a project, facilitating the steering committee thus becomes the essential tactic to involve those who hold power over resources, deadlines, and quality/performance. This kind of working meeting usually lasts 1 to 2 hours, during which many decisions must be made.

• What direction do we want to give the project?
• What information do we have to make one or more decisions?

How a project steering committee meeting unfolds

This type of meeting doesn't happen haphazardly. Members of senior management will be present, and it's also an opportunity to showcase yourself personally as a project manager. The steering committee is a set-piece exercise with its rituals, its stakes and its objectives.

Two main stages within a single presentation:

- The agenda: a review of ongoing actions, decisions made and decisions still to be made. This information must reach the various players ahead of the meetings.

- The steering committee minutes: they record the decisions made during the meetings and are sent out by the project manager.

Our tips for successful steering committee meetings

Experience shows that stakeholders pay as much attention to form as to substance. That's why the presentation deck you use matters so much.

Reporting tools and performance-measurement tools are very useful, but when the time comes to prepare the steering committee meeting, you must pay attention to a few points of prime importance:

• Prepare thoroughly: know your numbers, have the project's key milestones in mind, but also the political and strategic stakes surrounding the project.

• Keep it concise: "straight to the point" must be your motto. The steering committee is there to make decisions, not to listen to your praise or your complaints. If there is a problem, address it head-on at the start of the meeting, without beating around the bush

• Choose the right presentation template: for your project steering to succeed, form matters as much as substance. There are many presentation templates out there — it's up to you to choose the one that suits you best, or that will speak most clearly to the committees you'll be presenting progress to. Your dashboards must be concise and prompt action. Using colors is highly recommended.

• Choose the right level of communication: a manager doesn't want to — and shouldn't have to — dive into the details to make a strategic decision about projects. During the week you interact with operational staff; in steering committees you're addressing time-pressed decision-makers. Use the same language as your audience — mirroring helps get messages across.

Be your project's ambassador!

The project team's achievements absolutely must be highlighted in this type of meeting. A successful project is one where all stakeholders feel that things are moving fast and moving well.

There is therefore a performance objective that committee members will be watching. Don't hesitate to spotlight everyone working on the project, especially the business teams.

In any project there are always a few "forgotten ones"; the project manager is also there to bring every member of the team along toward the same goal.