ISQS4350-ManagingStakeholderExpectations

ISQS4350-ManagingStakeholderExpectations

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  1 Michael Punzo Burns ISQS 4350 March13, 2015 Managing Stakeholder Expectations According to Dr. Andrea Shapiro, founder and principal of Strategy Perspective, “Much ink—electronic and physical— has been used to describe the process of communicating with stakeholders.”1 Being able to manage your stakeholder’s expectations is perhaps the most important task of a project manager. Hopefully, before the project begins, each stakeholder will have defined his or her goals and expectations of the project. A stakeholder typically is an organization, entity or person that will be affected by the project and may even have control or sway over the project or its deliverables. Clarifying the stakeholders of a project is perhaps the number one goal of any project manager. As early as the 1900’s stakeholders were primarily referred to as one who held only a monetary interest. Although this is still true today, stakeholders may also be identified as senior management, functional managers, resources managers, project sponsor, government agencies/regulators, community, support staff, other employees and even suppliers and vendors of materials. The list of stakeholders can be quite extensive, so it is important to provide equal emphasis or attention to every stakeholder. In doing so, one must analyze the stakeholders by identifying the pertinent background and information about each stakeholder (what is their interest in the project, what is their level of authority in the project, and what expectations they might have). Properly managing the stakeholders’ expectations from the beginning will enable the ability to achieve a desired outcome.
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  2 Working as theproject manager on a desired project you are truly excited for the opportunity for a good outcome. However, according to Susanne Madsen, internationally recognized project leadership coach, trainer and consultant and author of The Project Management Coaching Workbook, “Be careful not to fall into the common trap of rushing to implement your ideas before you’ve got to know your new customer, the business and your team.” Once you have assembled your team, you now have gained the confidence that your team will help you to successfully meet and exceed the client’s expectations. Whether a stakeholder has a negative or positive impact on the project, it is necessary to be able to communicate with each one as if they were the only stakeholder. One must know the art of communicating with various types of personalities and backgrounds. Although it is hard to really understand a person in depth, we must perform a stakeholder analysis in order to have a positive success for our project. One possible method to understanding stakeholders is perhaps to group them by their interest or their influence on the project. We must not downplay those stakeholders that have lower influence or interest than the others. One must value all stakeholders. It is considered valuable to be able to use stakeholder’s personal relationship to leverage support of the projects goals. Much of the time a stakeholder management process is dependent upon how well the project manager can perceive the stakeholder’s opinion of the project. The project manager must present the project in a positive manner if he or she is going to get the stakeholders on board. Opponents of a project may protest the process with nothing more than an expression of fear of the unknown or even just a need to be included in the process. Thus, it is vital for a project manager to analyze each and every protest as real concerns and needs - even those stakeholders that have low priority or influence. Although most project managers would choose the least ambiguous data to present the project, it
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  3 may be necessaryto share the vision of the project including a more cultural approach than simply technical facts. Indeed, the stakeholders’ commitment to the project along with their common values and the requirements is a crucial part of the overall picture of the project. Being able to state the objectives of the project early on, develops an attitude of acceptance of the many stakeholders. It is important to maintain a positive image in regards to the project. This is a critical success factor for the project manager. Communication is absolute between the project manager and the stakeholder. Communication must be open, trustworthy, cooperative, respectful and informative. Developing teams of like-mindedness within the stakeholders allows open discussion of concern and even positive feedback. Within these groups addressing the concerns before they become issues, will avert possible conflicts. Observing and listening to your client and stakeholders enables the project manager to get a grasp on how the project will help them be more effective. Organization of a project is a must for success. As stated in the article “A Comparative Study of Factors Affecting the External Stakeholder Management Process” by Stefan Olander and Anne Landin, “The stakeholder management process can thus be defined as having the aim of maintaining the desired implementation of the project and avoiding unnecessary conflict and controversy with stakeholders.” Through organization and communication, the project manager can develop the necessary relationships with the various stakeholders and thus, can proactively plan and design keeping the stakeholder’s concerns in mind. As the project manager, you will need to categorize the level of each stakeholder. There are four main processes in project stakeholder management. As stated previously, you must identify your stakeholders. The output of this process is the stakeholder register. Secondly, you must plan your stakeholder management to actively engage your stakeholders in
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  4 project decisions. Youwill need to recognize their needs, interests, and what possible impact they will have on the project. You should develop a stakeholder management plan. This plan can be formal or informal in nature, depending on the project and which stakeholder you are dealing with. Project success is achieved in multiple ways: meeting scope, time or cost goals. But of course the most important goal is to satisfy the stakeholder. Next you must manager your stakeholder engagement by communicating with them and satisfying their needs and expectations. You should use issues logs, change requests, management plan updates, project documents updates, and organizational process assets updates (plans, policies, or guidelines that influence a project's success). Lastly, you must control your stakeholder engagement by monitoring and adjusting your plans and strategies as needed. Your outputs of this process would include work performance, change requests, document update, and organizational process update. As project manager you should develop a stakeholder analysis, which is a technique that is used to analyze information and interests of your stakeholders. Bonnie Cooper, PMP® recommends that you do the following: “Plot into a 2x2 grid that shows the stakeholder's relationship to the project. This helps categorize stakeholders and determine where project management should direct its efforts. It is also a key input into the communications, risk and scope plans. In the 2x2 grid, the X horizontal axis identifies the level of interest. This is the measure of how much they will be affected by the outcome of the project from low to high. The Y vertical axis of the grid identifies the level of power. This is the measure of how much a stakeholder can affect the outcome of a project from low to high. So in a 2x2 grid there are four squares.
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  5 ● Top leftis high power, low interest: stakeholders who plot to this square should be kept satisfied. ● Top right is high power, high interest: stakeholders who plot to this square should be managed closely. ● Bottom left is low power, low interest: stakeholders who plot to this square should be monitored. ● Bottom right is low power, high interest: stakeholders who plot to this square should be kept informed.” This is a great tool for a project manager to identify stakeholders at a glance. Another great tool is to plan an expectations management matrix. This tool will help clarify expectations, lists specific project measures of success and priorities, as well as any guidelines related to each measure. The great challenge to any project manager is when key stakeholders disagree on priorities. The project manager must acknowledge the different priorities and make the tough decisions. Sometimes this may alienate key stakeholders and could have a negative impact on the project. A meeting with this stakeholder to explain the decision will go a long way to understanding the overall picture. Another important tool is to develop an issues log. This log documents and tracks issues that may surface from the various stakeholders. The process that would follow an issues log is a change request (which should go through the project manager) The following variables have been found to be important to communicate and manage your stakeholders, according to Meyer and Allen, authors of Commitment in the Workplace: Theory, Research, and Application: ● Support and stimulate strategic and operative managers to participate in decision making;
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  6 ● Decentralize thedecision making to the levels where responsibilities are met; ● Be transparent in terms of information handling; and ● Treat all information equitably, regardless of its origin. In order to get managers to participate in the decision making of a project, you must give assurances to the managers that once a project is started they will have the necessary support needed to complete the project. This would include manpower, training for the potential workers, and funding for incidental purchases. By decentralizing the power this puts the responsibility at the feet of the project manager and his/her team that is actually doing the work. Hand-in-hand with support of the managers and placing the responsibility at the level of the team leaders, a project manager must divulge information transparently to all necessary parties. Any concerns or issues brought to the project manager’s attention must be taken seriously regardless of the origin. Always be open for dialogue in order to ensure stakeholder’s satisfaction. A project manager is also responsible to control or encourage a stakeholder's engagement. This involves a dialogue between the project manager and the stakeholders. The project manager sets the stage early on in the project. According to Schwalbe the stage that a project manager sets is much like a teacher who engages his or her students on the first day of class. Active participation by stakeholders in the early stages will ensure the project manager experiences to draw upon for the future. By getting key stakeholders to actively take a role rather than just sitting by, the project manager has a much higher level of success. Such involvement would include surveys, reviews, demonstrations and sign offs. During the course of the project, people tend to run around with misinformation or confusion about the project. This can lead to problems not just within the project itself, but also with the stakeholders and their investment. Often there are queues that tip you off that you are
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  7 perhaps mismanaging yourstakeholder’s expectations. Words or phrases to look or listen for would be: I thought, he or she said, that never works, IT never delivers, and we’re always late. The old saying “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure” applies to mismanaging or managing your stakeholders and their expectations. For instance, be sure to document [clearly] your stakeholders and their role in the project. Next, you should know your stakeholder; after all they are ones making the investment into your project. An early on coffee meeting, phone conversation or Skype is a good way to find out what concerns they might have, what they are thinking [in regards to the project], what makes them tick or what might throw them off track. Another step to prevent misinformation is to inform your team about your stakeholders. They need to know not only the task they are responsible for, but also whom they are working for. It is also important to have a setup/enforce process for any changes to be made. No one single stakeholder can simply demand a change without going through the proper process. This helps keep the project on track and enables timely status reports. Constantly keep in touch with your stakeholders and ask if there are questions or concerns that they need to address. By asking key questions of your stakeholders, it prevents being in an executive meeting and being the last to know of a problem that your team has overlooked or neglected. Lastly, it is important to dispel myths and misinformation. Due to the fact that most stakeholders have multiple projects, there is so much going on, people inside and outside the project giving information, this creates myths and misinformation. Therefore, it is important to dispel those myths by keeping people [stakeholders] informed with the true information about what is really going on with the project. Finally, there are many software and technology aids that are available to manage the stakeholders expectations. Tools such as word processors, spreadsheets and presentation software is available to the project manager. Communication software such as email, web sites
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  8 and texts, toname a few, are a big assist. Collaboration tools such as google docs, podcasts, webinars and video podcasts are a great aid to use. However, the best tool is the art of plain old fashioned talking. The number one priority is building trust and gathering information by asking questions, listening and being observant. According to Burns (TTU Professor, PMP, and author of Project Management Basics) it is the project manager’s task to effectively manage the stakeholders through clear and concise communication. This cannot be overstated enough. A project manager may have technology skills, but without acquired competencies such as being a good listener, problem solver, and negotiator, then the task of stakeholder management falls flat. Primarily, a projects success depends upon the project manager, the team he selects and the project manager’s ability to satisfy all stakeholder expectations.