I believe a key to a successful IT project is ensuring that it has a clear business purpose. In my opinion, this works best when the project is being lead by someone outside of IT that has a stake in the long term success. At Affinity we strive to assign a non-IT Project Champion to each project and make them accountable for the results.
In an earlier post regarding statements of work someone commented: “In my view a SOW included the commitments (read “promises”) that the internal personnel are making to each other. I submit that it is MUCH more important to make the promises to ourselves before we make them to vendors! “
This is my view too and I appreciate that I am not alone. The first draft of that internal agreement is developed by the Project Champion using our Project Champion Agreement.
Feel free to borrow from this liberally. Please tell me what you think.
Candid CIO 
Discovered your blog this evening. Your posts show a great appreciation for the divide (if that’s not too strong a word) that often exists between the IT/technology heads, and the business owners/champions….and this without even involving a user…
Thansk for the project champion agreement. As a vendor, this is something I would consider giving to my customers for their information.
BTW, I like the bit about ‘having fun’.