Who are the real decision makers around your project?
From the An Influential Project Manager Blog
by Colin Gautrey
Today, more than ever, a project manager needs to be an influencer.
The purpose of this blog is to stimulate your journey towards greater influence. With influence, you can overcome the roadblocks thrown in your way, overcome opposition, align stakeholders and, enjoy your role even more.
However, since I know you are busy, the posts here will be short (about a minute), thought provoking and also drive you towards action.
Feel free to connect with me, ask me questions, and share what's good here.
Recent Posts
Kindness
Becoming Streetwise
Shooting in the Dark
Three Reasons Why You Can't Handle the Politics
Passed Over for Promotion?
Categories
impact,
influence,
power,
Stakeholder Management,
stakeholder management
Date
Projects are littered with meetings with nobodies. People who have been delegated to by stakeholders. These people dutifully turn up (if you are lucky), make lots of helpful(?) comments and suggestions, but will not be willing to make any decisions.
Instead, they defer, distract, or simply nod and do nothing.
These people have had power delegated to them, but it is simply the power to turn up and feed back to the real decision makers.
You will notice:
- Meeting delegation increases as project time passes.
- Few will admit to being impotent in the decisions that need to be taken.
- If these proxies do offer a decision, it is at risk of being overturned by their seniors later.
- Regardless of interest and engagement, senior stakeholder often have no choice but to send others.
Therefore it is vital to make sure you know how individual stakeholder decisions will be made. Especially when it is an important decision, make sure you are talking to the organ grinders!
What can you do now to increase the power of your project so you can regain control, and keep it?
Posted on: April 19, 2017 05:57 PM |
Permalink
Comments (7)
Please login or join to subscribe to this item
Vincent Guerard
Coach - Trainer - Speaker - Advisor| Freelance
Mont-Royal, Quebec, Canada
I personally never had that problem. But one solution I see is a pre-agreement that decision taken during a meeting can’t be overturned by people not present. I think that it also requires that meeting agenda need to state decision to be made.
So stakeholders are advised on decision prior to delegating someone.
Deepesh Rammoorthy
ICT Project Manager ( PMP®AgilePM®Certified ScrumMaster® (CSM®))| Australian Red Cross Blood Service
Tarneit, Vic, Australia
I Would get on the phone to the Stakeholder who sent their proxy and confirm if they were happy with the status report /Meeting minutes and would they like to comment on anything that was discussed , including decisions made.
Drew Craig
Sr. Agile & Product Coach| Vanguard
Philadelphia, Pa, United States
As an IT PM working with Business Stakeholders, I clearly state I can make the IT decisions, but the business decisions are owned by them; their business rules and processes. Another aspect is empowering the Stakeholders to make decisions - offer solution options, recommendations, education ...
I believe that the monitoring and control of the project is fundamental through project managers and stakeholders to know clearly what is being done and to take strict control of the project.
I believe matrix or functional organizations see such decision making problems.
Project managers are highly authorized to make decisions and do make decisions in project based organizations.
Ken Bradshaw
Project Manager| CRA
Surrey, British Columbia, Canada
I agree with what you have written. I think it was Peter Drucker who wrote Getting to Yes, which basically described how to get to the decision maker. In my own organization, it is assumed that all around the table have no real power but, knowing that allows for time to be built in the schedule.
I have experienced such situation in a product based company I was working with!
Please Login/Register to leave a comment.
|
"Get your facts first, and then you can distort them as much as you please."
- Mark Twain
|
