RolePlay: Every Project Player Has A Part To Fill

  Stakeholder Management   PM Network  

Just about every project manager out there has gone through it. The project scope is slowly creeping out of control, the budget is ballooning and the team is verging on mutiny. So the project manager reaches out to senior management.

And, nothing happens.

Part of the problem may be that executives don’t know anything is supposed to happen.

Think of a project as a play in which everyone has a part, says Michael Campbell, PMP, managing director at Holland & Davis LLC, management consultants in Houston, Texas, USA. Referencing the book Change is the Rule [Winhope Press, 2004] by Dutch Holland, Mr. Campbell says for the play to succeed, each character—including project sponsors and executives—must know his or her lines.

Only senior management can require certain actions, when a project requires mandatory compliance related to a deliverable, for instance. So only senior management can communicate that message.

Upper management may also need to step in when functional groups are at odds and unable to agree on how something should be done.

But senior executives may need some prompting on their lines—they’re not always aware of what they need to do to guide projects along at bottlenecks or trouble spots.

“Most senior managers do not have a role description for their role as sponsor, so they rely on the project …

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