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Viewing Posts by Lynda Bourne
Stakeholders: Changing Attitudes, Securing Support
Categories:
Communications Management
Categories: Communications Management
| My last post touched on stakeholder attitudes. Attitude is derived from perceptions--in this context, the stakeholder's perception of the project and how its outcomes will affect the stakeholder's interests. Fortunately, perceptions are negotiable and can be changed by effective communication. Change perceptions and a change in attitude will follow. In my research, I considered two key dimensions to attitude: 1. How supportive or opposed the stakeholder is toward the project 2. How receptive the stakeholder is to communication from the project team Although receptiveness may seem less important, you cannot change a stakeholder's level of support if they refuse to communicate with you. Levels of support can range from active opposition to active support. For each of the important stakeholders, the project team needs to understand the stakeholder's current level of support and then determine a realistic optimum level. Exactly what that realistic optimum is varies. For example, environmental activists can never be realistically expected to support a new road through a wilderness area. The realistic optimum may be passive opposition and a communications plan developed to negotiate an outcome that the environmentalists can live with. Your project sponsor should be an active supporter. Communication needs to be planned to engage the stakeholder in actively supporting the project. That means open communication. If the stakeholder is unwilling to communicate, ways need to be devised to open channels. This may involve using other stakeholders in the network around the project to open the communication, changing the way you communicate or just plain persistence. Only after communication channels are open can you start to listen to the other person and understand their needs, concerns or ambitions. Once these are known, you're in a position to either explain how the current project meets those needs or consider risk-mitigation strategies to modify the project to reduce issues and enhance opportunities. The whole point of stakeholder management is to optimize the overall attitude of the stakeholder community to allow the project to succeed. A very significant proportion of the risks around most projects are people-based. The only way to identify, manage and/or mitigate these risks is by effective two-way communication. More on this later. |
Communicating With the Right Stakeholders
Categories:
Communications Management
Categories: Communications Management
| Any project team will have far more stakeholders to potentially communicate with than they have either the time, money or people to manage. But selecting the right stakeholders for a sustained communication effort in a project is not simple and can be a very resource intensive process. My research over the last 10 years suggests a three-phased approach works best. One: Identify the stakeholders and figure out what you need from them and what they want from the success (or failure) of the project. This is called 'mutuality'. If you can show the person they're likely to achieve at least some of their aims, they're far more likely to provide you with what you need from them. Two: Work out which stakeholder is most important. This requires assessing at least three aspects for each: • How powerful is the stakeholder? Can he or she close the project down, force change or do they have little direct impact? • How much effort is the stakeholder likely to invest in asserting their position or 'rights'? Some stakeholders will go to almost any lengths to assert their position while others are really not that interested. • How close is the stakeholder to the project? People actively working on the project have more impact than those who are relatively distant. Three: Determine the attitude of each important stakeholder towards the project and how receptive they are to your communication. Now you have the information needed to focus your communication efforts where they can achieve the greatest benefit. People who have a supportive attitude simply need 'business as usual' communication. On the other hand, important stakeholders who are assessed as having a less than optimal attitude may need heroic communication efforts to change their views if the project is going to succeed. And always remember: People change. Reassessing the stakeholder community on a regular basis helps ensure the communication plan is working or if it needs changing. |
The Right Information For the Right People
Categories:
Communications Management
Categories: Communications Management
| My last post highlighted the challenges of designing a project communication system that works. Now I will try to suggest a few solutions. To quote Peter Taylor's book, The Lazy Project Manager, "Reporting is not communicating." Executives don't have time to read fantastically accurate and detailed reports--people are simply too busy to take that kind of deep dive. But at least some of that detail is important. My suggestions to resolve this conundrum are: • Separate push and pull communications. Make the detail available in a repository such as a project portal) where people who need the detail can easily retrieve it (pull). Anything you send out (push) should focus on the highlights and information that requires action. • Separate history from future. Reporting what happened last week is of no value to the project unless it contains information that will influence future decisions. Historical data is needed by accountants and business administrators. project leaders and team members need information that is forward-looking, focusing on what might happen in the future and what needs to be done to improve the situation. • Focus on the needs of the receivers. Make sure you give your audience the information they need to help make the project successful. Team members need to know what work to do in the next week or two. Managers need to know what they have to decide. Achieving this type of communication requires planning and information design. Each element of the overall controls system needs to be elegantly designed to support both management decision-making and the work of the project. More importantly, the communication effort needs to focus on the important stakeholders who influence success: both internally to leaders within the team and externally to decision makers and influencers. (More on this later.) And remember Cohn's Law: The more time you spend in reporting on what you are doing, the less time you have to do anything. Stability is achieved when you spend all your time reporting on the nothing you are doing. |
Project Controls & Communication
Categories:
Communications Management
Categories: Communications Management
| Describing scheduling, earned value management (EVM) and financial management as "project controls" is, I would suggest, dangerous! The steering mechanism on a car is a control system. You move the steering wheel, and the front wheels turn and if the car is in motion, its direction of travel is altered. Control systems cause a change. Altering the duration of a task in a schedule, or calculating the current cost performance index and estimate at completion for an EVM report changes nothing. All you have is new data. If the data is going to cause a change, it needs to be communicated to the right people. They need to receive, understand and believe the data--this changes the data into information. Then they need to use this new information to change their future behaviors. This is a communication process. The challenge facing schedulers and other controls staff is recognizing their primary role is communication not controls. Certainly they need to be able to gather and process information effectively but this is wasted effort without equally effective communication. Other challenges include: • Identifying the right people to communicate with--the project manger is the only one • Formatting the data in a way that can be easily understood by the receiver. Without understanding, there will be no action. • Focusing the information on what matters in the future No one can change the past and it's always too late to change the present. The only value a project control tool can offer is to influence future actions and decisions. This requires making schedules, cost plans and the like as simple as possible to improve communication and facilitate understanding by the project team. Only after the project team fully understands the information can you expect them to use the information to make wise decisions about future actions. |
Communicating Up and Down
Categories:
Communications Management
Categories: Communications Management
| In most organizations project managers need to be skilled in both communicating downward to motivate their project teams and communicating upward to influence their managers. Yet while inefficient communication with team members comes with its own set of issues, ineffective communication with senior management may put the whole project at risk. Senior managers today generally operate in "command and control" mode, and most organizational processes support this view. Despite theories of team motivation based on empowerment, delegation and job enrichment, control is still the favorite with most senior management. Project managers need to develop the skills needed to advise upward effectively. In so doing, they must align the project's objectives with the organization's strategic objectives and, more importantly, ensure the key senior managers appreciate this fact and contribute to the project's success. The key is helping your boss look good. This can be achieved by providing good information and analysis for decision-making; never escalating a problem or issue without options and recommendations for a resolution; and always communicating in business language with an understanding of the manager's business drivers. A cooperative, supportive relationship is a two-way street. Project managers need to earn the respect and support of senior managers by adopting a positive approach to communicating up the ladder. Some positive options include providing helpful notes to assist the manager deal with difficult situations, and providing a full analysis of the recommendations and options for resolving issues or making decisions. Advising upward or helping your manager help you requires a long-term view. There is no silver bullet! You must build credibility over time by developing and maintaining a reputation for being ethical, efficient and open. And above all you must be an effective project manager in your space and a supportive team player in your manager's space. |