JFK was the 35th President of the United States and delivered some of the greatest project leadership speeches of all time. Kennedy stood before Congress on May 25, 1961, and proposed that

this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth.

and later at Rice Stadium the following year

We choose to go to the Moon! … We choose to go to the Moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard; because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one we intend to win …

No one could have been left in any doubt from the highest to the lowliest employee of NASA, the American people and the wider world what the United States wanted to achieve, the reasons behind doing it and the resolve to make it happen. The vision statements were not only inspiring rhetoric but contained the essential project information regarding timeliness (by the end of the decade), quality (getting a man on the moon and returning him safely to earth) and cost (it will be difficult and by inference expensive).

So often difficulties in projects are seen as ‘failures of project management’ but without inspiring and effective project sponsorship the efforts of project teams can often founder. Every project needs sound project leadership not only from the project manager but also from the project’s sponsor.