Topic Teasers Vol. 40: Stakeholder Involvement

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I’ve just been an unwilling part of a total project train wreck. Management purchased a third-party software “solution” without any input from my team or any of the end users. Once it was on site, we had the impossible job of implementing it and rolling it out to the organization. What a disaster! I can’t change that, but how do I protect myself and my team from being involved in that kind of situation in the future?

A. Document the specifics of the failure so that you have data to show how and why this ultimately failed. At the same time, come up with steps you can take with your team to change your own and the team’s behavior when this happens again.

B.  Managers who do not listen to the team and the end users deserve to fail and for the project--and ultimately the organization--to lose money. You can’t fight management, so just do your job and implement what they choose.

C. Set up a lunch-and-learn session as soon as you have collected enough incriminating evidence to show that management made a very poor business decision in this instance. Be very specific in who was responsible for this failure, and by doing this you will deflect blame from yourself and your team.

D. An agile team works on the premise that they are flexible. Despite incorrect third-party software being purchased, you and your team should have been…

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