In complex enterprise projects, there’s no shortage of moving parts. Multiple workstreams, competing priorities, evolving business needs, and high-stakes vendor relationships all require vigilant oversight. Without a central body to align stakeholders, make timely decisions, and reinforce accountability, projects can quickly drift off course.
Enter the executive steering committee (ESC), an essential governance body that ensures strategic alignment, risk mitigation, and business value realization. But here’s the problem: Many ESCs are underutilized. They meet infrequently, focus on surface-level status updates, and lack the authority and clarity needed to truly steer the project.
At Andrew Reise, we’ve helped countless organizations structure, launch, and optimize ESCs to serve as powerful enablers of transformation. In this blog post, we’ll talk about how to run an effective ESC that moves beyond rubber-stamping and becomes a driving force behind successful project management.
Membership and roles: Build the right table.
An ESC is only as effective as the people sitting around the table. Membership should be strategic, cross-functional, and empowered to make decisions that shape the project's direction.
Here’s a breakdown of who typically belongs on an ESC and why:
- Program sponsor: Often a C-suite leader who champions the program and controls funding
- Finance lead: Ensures alignment with business case, ROI tracking, and budget compliance
- Operations lead: Brings insights into frontline impact and readiness
- IT leadership: Represents integration, security, and technical feasibility
- Vendor representatives (if applicable): Provide insight on external delivery timelines and risks
- Customer or business unit leaders: Reflect the voice of end users and internal stakeholders
These roles ensure the ESC can evaluate trade-offs from multiple perspectives: financial, technical, operational, and experiential.
We helped a past insurance client structure its ESC to include both enterprise technology and customer operations leaders. This ensured that major platform decisions balanced both back-end feasibility and frontline usability.
Decision log discipline: Track it or lose it.
Too often, decisions made in ESC meetings are either:
- Not documented
- Not communicated to the teams that need them
- Not followed up on
That’s why we implement a formal decision log as part of ESC governance. This log captures:
- The decision made
- The rationale behind it
- Who approved it
- Date and action owner
- Any follow-up required
The decision log serves as both an accountability mechanism and a historical reference. When priorities shift or scope changes, you have a clear record of what was decided and the reasons behind it.
For example, one client facing scope creep across multiple workstreams used its ESC decision log to revisit earlier trade-offs. By seeing the original rationale, it avoided unnecessary rework and kept the project focused on its strategic goals.
Effective project agenda management: Structure drives impact.
A well-run ESC meeting doesn’t just happen—it’s planned. We recommend structuring every agenda to prioritize strategic discussions and decisions, not just updates.
A strong agenda typically includes:
1. Critical Risks & Issues
- What’s at risk right now?
- What needs immediate attention or decision?
2. Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)
- Are we on track with respect to scope, timeline, budget, and user satisfaction?
3. Milestone Progress Review
- What has been achieved since the last meeting?
- What’s ahead?
4. Upcoming Decisions or Trade-Offs
- What input is needed from the ESC?
5. Change Requests
- What’s new, what’s changed, and what’s the impact?
We also recommend sending pre-read materials 2-3 days in advance and assigning a project manager to facilitate each meeting, keeping discussions focused and outcomes clear.
Escalation best practices: Know what rises to the ESC.
Not every risk or decision is suitable for the executive level. For an ESC to be effective, it needs to focus on strategic escalations—those that materially impact the project’s ability to deliver on time, on budget, or in alignment with the business case.
Common examples of ESC-worthy escalations include:
- Major scope changes or reprioritizations
- Budget overruns or capital reallocation requests
- Vendor performance issues affecting go live
- Cross-workstream dependencies that have stalled
- Organizational readiness or change resistance
We use predefined escalation thresholds to help project managers determine what requires escalation and what should be resolved within the workstreams.
For instance, during a recent contact center transformation, a vendor delay on a key feature was escalated to the ESC when it became clear that it would impact the go-live date for four regional deployments. The ESC intervened, negotiated scope trade-offs, and maintained timeline integrity.
Use the ESC to govern business value, not just project management tasks.
An often-overlooked role of the ESC is value governance. Beyond monitoring task completion, the committee should track whether the project is delivering the promised outcomes—financial, operational, and experiential.
We help clients implement project scorecards that align with the original business case and provide regular visibility into:
- Revenue and cost savings forecasts
- Adoption and usage metrics
- Customer experience improvements (e.g., Net Promoter Score)
- Readiness indicators by business unit
These scorecards shift the ESC’s focus from “Are we on time?” to “Are we achieving what we said we would?” That subtle shift is what separates average projects from truly transformative ones.
How do you create a successful ESC?
A well-run ESC includes cross-functional leaders, focuses agendas on risks and KPIs, and drives fast, informed decisions with clear escalation paths.
A past telecommunications client brought us in mid-project to stabilize a high-stakes platform rollout. The ESC was underutilized—meeting monthly, spending most of its time reviewing status slides, and deferring key decisions to working teams.
We overhauled the governance model with:
- A restructured ESC composed of empowered leaders across IT, marketing, customer operations, and finance
- A robust decision log that’s reviewed at every meeting
- Risk thresholds that triggered fast-track escalation
- Scorecards tied to customer outcomes and adoption, not just timeline
The result? Scope clarity improved, risk mitigation accelerated, and business leaders reengaged with the transformation. What had been a reactive oversight group became a strategic steering body that drove the project forward with confidence.
Check out more customer success stories to learn about our project management services!
Create steering committees that actually steer.
A successful ESC is a critical enabler of strategic delivery. When structured and run effectively, the ESC becomes the place where clarity is created, accountability is enforced, and forward momentum is protected.
By including the right stakeholders, focusing on value-aligned decisions, and maintaining clear communication mechanisms, such as decision logs and scorecards, your ESC can steer even the most complex projects toward success.
Don’t let your most important projects drift. Build an ESC that drives alignment, decisions, and value. Contact Andrew Reise today, and let’s design a governance model that delivers.
