External Pressures

Andy Jordan is President of Roffensian Consulting S.A., a Roatan, Honduras-based management consulting firm with a comprehensive project management practice. Andy always appreciates feedback and discussion on the issues raised in his articles and can be reached at [email protected]. Andy's new book Risk Management for Project Driven Organizations is now available.

  CRM   Stakeholder Management  

Some of the most frustrated project managers that I know work in environments where they are exposed to an organization’s external customers. However, it must also be said that some of the most satisfied project managers that I know work in similar environments. At times, the satisfied ones become frustrated, and the frustrated ones become satisfied, it seems as though that is the nature of the role. But does it have to be that way?

I recognize that project managers in these environments face a wider variety of situations than, say, PMs who work within an organization looking after the needs of a relatively self-contained group of stakeholders. However, that doesn’t mean that they can’t control those situations and ensure a relatively consistent project management experience. Where that seems to go wrong is in situations where the client appears to rebel from the standardized approach that the project manager is trying to create, and that’s what I want to look at in this article.

Ask yourself “Why?”
There will be situations where a contract with a client specifies that the client’s project management approach will be used, and there will be little that the project manager can do about those situations other than try and adjust with the minimum amount of disruption to the team. However, those scenarios are relatively …

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