Software Engineering Steering Committee: Definition, Roles, Responsibilities

By Alex Circei, CEO and Co-Founder of Waydev.

The deployment of complex and revolutionary technological projects requires a form of support and accompaniment that only steering committees can provide. These advisory councils are essential to avoid risks, arbitrate situations and increase efficiency. However, for them to deliver results, you need two things: include the right people and provide them with access to accurate and reliable data on team and project performance.

The IT management steering committee: what is it and how to set it up?

IT steering committees are a widely used management practice, often used in companies implementing costly, disruptive, and high-stakes projects. Since they have complete governance over the project life cycle, it is essential to ensure that these advisory boards have an excellent combination of authority, expertise and IT and engineering skills.

In this context, a steering committee includes valuable leaders with a track record of success. These high-level professionals are department heads, senior managers and board members.

Although they need to have experience in the areas most affected by the project, it is also crucial not to be involved in its development and deployment. Indeed, a key feature of effective steering committees is to ensure impartiality and to offer an objective, outside perspective on its progress.

Scope of the steering committee

Typically, the steering committee provides direction and scope to the project and team, overseeing important aspects such as budget, schedule, and the methods involved. However, its role is much more complex.

• Ensure that team members buy into the project

A successful project needs dedicated people who understand and buy into its value. To ensure this happens, Steering Committee members share their common vision and help professionals understand the benefits of each change, making them feel part of something bigger. This way, the project team has the mindset and psychological resources to cope with the pressure, changing dynamics and extra work required.

• Decision-making at management level

Some members of your team may find it easier and more effective to make decisions individually than in a group, as they need to understand their points of view and find common ground with people with different perspectives.

This can be particularly difficult, especially if you have no experience with collaboration. This is where the members of the steering committee come in. They help professionals navigate different opinions and paths and make decisions effectively, as a unit, without disrupting the overall process.

To do this, the members of the steering committee pay attention to the big picture to see how the project affects the ecosystem of the organization and all the stakeholders. For example, these C-suite advisors can assess the company's workload and decide whether to bring in additional talent that helps balance skills and talents or brings in a new, much-needed perspective.

• Troubleshoot

Although the main role of the steering committee is to offer advice, members often have to intervene, solve problems and arbitrate conflicts.

Indeed, some complex situations may require the expertise of key executives who can help steer the team down the most effective path.

Steering committees also step in and help project managers identify inefficiencies and bottlenecks, optimize projects, and help team members find a compromise. More so, their role is to ask the right questions, which makes it easier for professionals to solve potential problems and improve the business.

• Approve project budgets

The steering committee oversees the budget, which means members must approve its iteration before work begins and accept any requests for changes and new funds.

Members analyze the value and compare it to the finances of the organization to make informed decisions. Using automated tools that provide crucial details on the progress and costs of key deliverables helps those involved to have a clear view of project costs and their development to ensure that the budget is on schedule and the KPIs.

Functions of the steering committee