Thoughts on Project Management

The executive’s role in project management is as the project sponsor. The project sponsor is a leader, or a group of leaders, who provide the resources and support for a project they launch. The sponsor should ensure a vision for the project and share that vision with the project team. The sponsor should ensure that the project has the budget necessary to be successful. And, the sponsor helps by clearing any barriers that may arise so that the project team can be successful.

As should be apparent, the project sponsor role is an active one and should be held by a senior leader in the association. This is the individual responsible for identifying the business need, problem or opportunity that the project will address. Once this has been proven (the business case accepted,) this individual remains responsible for ensuring the continued viability of the initiative through use of go/no criteria. In a nutshell, go/no criteria enables for reviewing key areas of the project as it progresses and thereby stopping the project at some point before significant money is invested. Areas to be examined may include, but are not limited to:

A strong project sponsor plays the role of mentor, catalyst, motivator, barrier remover and boundary manager. Being a project sponsor requires understanding and supporting the project, the ability to influence within the association, and being able to make decisions for the good of the project.

Every project has stakeholders that may be labeled as “difficult.” While I’ll acknowledge that some people just choose to be difficult and contrary; many times there is a valid reason for someone being difficult. They are just not expressing themselves in the best way possible. This is not to excuse their behavior; but, look deeper into why they are being difficult.

For example, when I am dealing with “difficult” stakeholders, I listen and ask questions to understand what is going on. Through active listening and asking questions, I have learned of legitimate concerns and worries that were not addressed, such as:

• How a project would impact a stakeholder’s job and career with the company
• Whether a stakeholder would be able to learn the new skills and obtain the knowledge required to be successful
• That there is a perception of too many unknowns and a lack of sufficient information/communications about what was happening and why
• Too much going on already within the organization (or even personally in the stakeholder’s life) that impacts his/her ability to manage through one more change
• Stakeholders feeling they are losing control
• Stakeholders feeling they cannot provide input for changes that impact them directly

These are all very valid concerns and some stakeholders, rather than having a conversation, may dig in their heels and therefore be perceived as difficult.

Let’s not just label stakeholders. Have a conversation with them to understand what is going on. You’ll be better able to address the situation if you have some specifics rather than just trying to manage a “difficult” stakeholder. Each of the issues/concerns in the bulleted list above are far more workable (able to be addressed) than just changing a difficult stakeholder. Address the (perceived) concerns and issues and manage the stakeholder.

Try it out on your next project with a “difficult” stakeholder. You’ll see a difference!

Before you officially kick off your next project, consider whether you can answer the following questions:

• Are you aware of why the project is being launched? If not, find out! Ask the project sponsor why this particular project is being launched? What is the goal of the project? To what strategic organizational goal is the project aligned? This information enables you to understand the priority level of the project as well as have information that enables for securing resources and “selling” the project to team members and stakeholders.
   

• Do you have the knowledge to run the project? What are your strengths and weaknesses regarding the project? When you understand areas that you are not as knowledgeable as you might be or may have limited skills, you can use that knowledge to ensure you recruit team members who can help fill in the gaps. You don’t need to be an expert in every area of the project, others will have expertise you do not. Rely on their expertise to ensure a successful project.
   

• How do stakeholders feel about the project? Are they champions of the project? Are they against it? How do you know? If you don’t know, find out! Ask stakeholders their opinion about the project. Are they excited about it or worried? If worried, dive deeper to understand why so that you can address those concerns and get stakeholders on board with the project.

• Can the project be implemented as is? If it is a large, complex initiative, you might consider breaking down the project into smaller components to be more easily managed and to enable for quicker successes.
   
• How will the project “stick” when complete? What reinforcements will be put in place to ensure the project end result “sticks?” Will training be needed? What incentives are necessary? What processes will need to change? Consider what will need to happen to ensure the project sticks so that you can prepare early.

What else do you do to get ready for your projects? Share your best practices in the Comments section.

You are working on a project to implement an online benefits management portal to enable employees to have a “one stop” location to view their health and dental benefits, get answers to benefits-related questions, and enable for changes to be made to health benefit coverage. Requirements were gathered over a two week time period at the start of the project and all stakeholders participated in requirements gathering sessions. The project is near completion – the portal has been developed by the IT/Application Development group. It has been tested, works well and will be rolled out early next week.

You are approached by a member of the senior leadership team who suggests that it would be of value to add in a component so that employees can also manage their 401Ks. In fact, he wants this to happen in time for this roll out.

What should you do? 

Here is what you might do:  Obviously trying to add in the 401K component now is not a good idea. However, the idea of adding in this functionality is a good idea! As the project manager, talk to the stakeholder who desires this change and acknowledge it is a wonderful idea that will certainly be of value to the employees. However, to add it in now means that the following would have to occur:

• The release date of the online benefits management portal will need to be delayed in order to develop and then test this addition to the portal. Releasing the new component before fully testing risks the success of the project.

• IT/Application Development team members, who have been deployed to other projects, would need to be brought back to work on this component or additional resources will need to be found. This will increase costs on the project.

Suggest that the following may be options:

• Hold the 401K component for a Phase 2 of the project.

• Add in a link to the current 401K application so that employees can access that information from this portal.

By acknowledging that the idea is a great one, but needs time to be prepared to enable for success and suggesting some options enables the project manager to have a better conversation with the stakeholder and to ensure that the right approach is taken for this addition to the product.

What else might you do? How would you handle this request?

Most team members are excited about working on a new project, even if a bit apprehensive. Generally they are excited about the possibilities and start off optimistic. It may certainly be “uninformed optimism” since they may not know enough about what the project entails just yet.

But what if they start off pessimistic about the project from the start? All doom and gloom. And – as if that is not enough – as the project manager no matter what you try you just can’t headway with some of the team. For some of the team members - nothing is right, nothing is sufficient, nothing will work – it’s the end of the world.

Take a deep breath! You can get past this.

First, we’ll assume that you have a sponsor who is onboard, recognizes the issues and is supportive of you – and will jump in if you need him to do so.

Begin by scheduling a meeting with the team members who have the issues to understand what is going on and develop a plan to move forward. We don’t all have to be best friends on the team but we must respect each other and learn how to work together effectively. Discussions in this meeting should focus on:

• What is driving the pessimism?
• What does the team need to move forward?

The goal is to understand the issues driving the pessimism and come to agreement on what the team needs that will satisfy them so they can move forward. Be really clear here regarding specifically what needs to be done. I have learned that for those team members who are just not going to move forward no matter what, you can spend way too much time trying to get them to come along to the detriment of the project.

If it is needed, have the sponsor involved in this discussion with the team. There have been two instances when I needed the sponsor’s involvement because of the situation. Sometimes someone higher up needs to help the team to move forward. In one situation, the team just didn’t want to do the project because they were happy with the way things were in the organization and the project was a big change. As much as I tried to move them forward, it required my project sponsor to explain that the organization was moving forward and they needed to come along.

When we can get the people together, we can begin to open up communications, share thoughts and address issues, in a professional manner. Consider an outside facilitator to help the team to listen to each other and really hear what someone else is saying. Until the team gets their concerns addressed, or feel heard, they cannot be productive. If they are not productive, the project cannot succeed.

In one of the situations where I needed to get a sponsor involved, the ultimate decision made was to remove the team member from the team and replace him with another. I saw it as a personal failure on my part. I have always worked diligently to develop strong working relationships with individuals on the team and was never able to do so with this particular team member. Regardless of what I did, or didn’t do, it was always a problem for this person. I’ll call it a personality issue; it happens. Although I worked, with the support of the project sponsor, to repair my relationship with this individual, it never happened. The sponsor ended up replacing the individual on the team. Frankly I think it was more than a personality issue, the individual just didn’t want the project to move forward. Had I kept trying to work it out with him and keep him on the team, the project would have suffered. All of my energy was going to him.

In many cases, with a bit of effort, the project manager can move the team past pessimism about the project. You just need to understand why the team is being so pessimistic. Often there is lots of history within the organization to consider. When you can get to the root of the issue, you can address it. Sometimes, it is just asking the question!