The board of directors is a constituent of the organizational governance in ensuring accountability, fairness, and transparency to stakeholders. They reinforce standards and compliance along with organizational policies and much more. In project management, the project team will have considerably more knowledge about the actual project whereas the board of directors will be knowledgeable on the governing of the organization, comparable to the human resources departments in mainstream companies. The power of the board of directors is limited with regard to projects. They oversee the projects to ensure proper management and enforce regulations and responsibilities of the team members but are not in complete power of the project course. I don’t think a large percentage of the board tackles the project, I think their roles are mostly fulfilled when issues are escalated to them. 

Also, the board directors are mostly responsible for the general direction that projects must take and the goals that they should achieve rather than the technical details for particular projects and timelines. 

A board of directors has a lot of say when it comes to projects that might help or hinder the group depending on how big the project is. The purpose of the board is to determine if the direction of the company is towards the mission and overall goal of the company and to determine what would make shareholders happy and would make the company prosper and excel. For this reason, they typically only look at few projects that are instrumental. For example, during the height of the pandemic, for Pfizer, it would make sense that the board of directors would have a close eye on the covid-19 vaccine project as many of their shareholders were closely following the progress of the vaccine. 

Most of the discussion so far has been about how the board of directors usually steps in at a high level. However, I think their real influence comes from how change is handled during a project. I agree that the board is not involved in the everyday decisions, but they play a big role in what changes are allowed to happen when the project is occurring, and how much risk the company will tolerate. Every significant change has to be evaluated and approved in a formal process. This happens during the monitoring and controlling phase, and this process ultimately has thresholds that are set by the board itself, along with the other upper leadership. Thus, the board indirectly determines how flexible the system is and how easily change can be implemented. 

In medical device development, changes to the project halfway through can lead to big effects in regulatory timelines and cost. These decisions are ultimately managed by the board since they set the guidelines and thresholds. The team below knows how to adhere to the guidelines that the board above has set. 

Additionally, the board has power over where the portfolio of the company goes. The board can decide which projects to stop, and if a project is strong but doesn’t align with the strategy or where the board wants the company to go, then the project can be shut down. The board tries to ensure that all projects align with the overarching goal of the company, shown through its power to shut down projects. 

The board also has a looming shadow over the teams working on the project. If the team knows that their project is more in line with the board's view, then they might be more cautious and avoid riskier ideas. Teams may polish the reports excessively instead of focusing on real progress. This shows an indirect effect that the board has on the project. 

Lastly, the board also influences when money is released to the project, and delayed funding can slow down a project significantly. On the other hand, funding too early can lead to more risk-taking as well, showing both sides of the coin. 

In medical device development, these aspects play a big role in how the project progresses, as a small design change can trigger re-validation or delays with regulatory. The board’s tolerance for changes and the budgets directly affect how quickly the device reaches the market and how safe it will end up being in the long term. 

Do you think boards should enforce stricter control in medical device development or allow for more flexibility early on? Do you think stricter control will improve project outcomes, or will it just slow down the project overall? Have you ever experienced a project shutdown from the board in one of your projects? How was the process, and how did you transition from the shutdown?  

The board of directors at any job, being a biotechnology group or a medical device company, are pretty powerful when it comes to running a project. The board has plenty of power because they have the ability to decide if any project gets shut down or gets approved and moves forward to the next stage or to the end. As many users have mentioned, the board directors are responsible for the general direction that projects take and the goals they should achieve. In terms of the percentage of the board tackling a project, it is almost not at all. They have a lot of say in what projects do, but they do not actually do them. They will only be involved if they need to communicate directly with the people working on it. There are plenty of examples in the biotechnology and medical device industry where the board director calls down to take to their workers directly or ask them to work on a different component of the project. In a sense, they talk and direct, but sometimes not do the work. Other than that, they will be involved in terms of getting and asking for feedback on projects, asking for precise reports on how the projects are going. In other words, they will be involved when it comes to knowing how everything is running, but they probably will not get their hands dirty.

The board directors should be flexible, but they already put a lot of pressure on the people running their project to get it up and running. What they analyze to determine what projects to approve or not are always changing with supply, demands, and finances. Given that, they should also have a certain way established on how to communicate and vote on, meaning to adhere to those company rules and regulations.

I agree that the board of directors mainly operates at a high level and is not involved in day-to-day project execution, but one aspect that stood out to me is their role in risk tolerance and decision thresholds. Even if they are not directly working on the project, they indirectly shape how the team operates by defining how much risk is acceptable, especially in highly regulated fields like medical devices.

In practice, I don’t think it’s about a specific percentage of the board working on a project, but rather when and how often they intervene. For most projects, involvement is minimal unless there are major milestones, funding decisions, or high-risk changes. However, for critical projects (like new device approvals or major product launches), their involvement can increase significantly.

Something I’m curious about is how companies balance this. How do you ensure the board provides enough oversight without slowing down innovation or decision-making at the team level?

The power of the board of directors in a project lifecycle is absolute, and they hold the ability to terminate or freeze projects for budgetary or scheduling concerns. As others have mentioned, the board essential acts as an oversight committee and evaluates the risk associated with the project. They may also decide to change the overall direction of the project based on what the shareholders deem necessary. Essentially, they decide whether the project is worth pursuing or whether it will be a risk to the company. Though they are not directly involved in project validation and verification, they are legally responsible for the quality and compliance of products which gives them power to mandate QC reports which they can then base their decisions off of. The board likely does not dedicate a percentage to a project and instead allocates meeting time on project oversight. I would imagine this time spent would be low if the project is running smoothly and has no concerns or moderate to high if the project is encountering problems. To answer @shreya 's question, I think you can allow the team to make technical decisions as long as they stay within certain parameters set by the project (or were approved). In this way, it lets the team remain autonomous and allows them innovate. The team can then provide the board with reports, and so long as they remain satisfactory, they can continue to operate like this. If issues arise, then the board can step in and raise the level of oversight on the team. 

The board of directors should operate at a strategic level, rather than an operational one because it highlights an important structural dynamic within medical device companies. Their power lies not in executing the work, but in setting the boundaries within where the work is done, approving resources, and defining acceptable risk thresholds that they will hold responsible for. They are the party within a company that decides if a project continues or gets shut down, and with that power, they have the ability to shift and change dynamics within all of the teams under them. If a board has a low risk tolerance, teams may feel pressure to over validate or delay bold decisions, while a board that prioritizes speed to market may inadvertently push teams to compress timelines in ways that create downstream quality or regulatory risk. As a PM, it is essential to understand the boards priorities and risk tolerance, as those preferences will filter down to how milestones are evaluated, and which trade offs are considered acceptable when problems do eventually arise. 
Shreya's question about balancing board oversight with team-level agility is entirely based on how a project is governed. One effective approach is establishing clearly defined decision rights, sometimes formalized through a RACI matrix or governance charter, that specify which decisions require board approval versus which can be made autonomously by the project team. This prevents the board from becoming a bottleneck on routine decisions while still ensuring they are engaged at critical inflection points such as phase gate reviews, major design changes, or regulatory submission strategies. Regular, structured reporting cadences, such as concise monthly or quarterly updates, also help keep the board informed without requiring constant direct involvement. Ultimately, the most functional board relationships are built on trust and transparency, where the team proactively surfaces risks and progress in a language the board understands, typically around cost, timeline, and strategic alignment, allowing the board to fulfill its oversight role without needing to reach down into the day-to-day work.