Stakeholder Management & What It Means To A Project Manager
Considering that you have some experience in project management or that you are looking to explore this arena, it is quite probable that you have heard of the PMBOK. It’s the holy grail of everything “project management”. And so as a project manager, trying to gauge the ups and downs of this job, I found myself scanning through PMBOK pages. Buried deep down within this guide, the last and the shortest chapter talks about “Stakeholder Management”.
Now I have nothing against PMBOK, but I was quite surprised at this very concise chapter on “Stakeholder Management”.
I wondered, “What is project management if not stakeholder management?”. How do you scope out your project if you have not completely understood your client’s requirements? How will you manage the project’s cost and schedule if your team is not on the same page as you? How can a project be successful unless all the stakeholders are happy, right?
All the stakeholders, happy? What seriously?! You know the drill. When sales is happy, the operations is not. When procurement is happy, management is not. When everyone is happy, maybe the client is not! The overall morale and enthusiasm of the team depends on how they’re feeling and maybe what makes stakeholder management so tricky is that everyone cannot be satisfied at the same time. Stakeholder management includes leadership traits that understand human behavior as much as understanding those Gantt Charts and keeps everyone together while continually monitoring project progress.
What are some of the steps a project manager can take to hone those stakeholder management skills. Here are the lessons I have learnt:
- Understand why they are into this
Early on in the project talk to your stakeholders and understand their goals behind doing the project and what is “really important” for them. This will give you a clear view of the project scope. It will make you a better decision-maker and help you better prioritize daily tasks. Later on in the project, these are the conversations which will also help you manage conflicts as you will be in a better position to focus on what each stakeholder primarily needs.
It is a good idea to document your stakeholders’ goals, expectations and concerns, especially when managing large projects. PMBOK refers this document as a “Stakeholder Register”.
Also, classify your stakeholders based on their current status and where you would like them to see as Unaware, Resistant, Neutral, Supportive and Leading.
So for example, there is an internal project you are handling where you wish to introduce some processes for the engineering department to track quality of submitted deliverable. You introduce some forms that need to be filled by all engineers when they are submitting a product to the client. The engineering team might be unaware of the changes you are planning to make initially, and then they might turn ‘resistant’ since they think filling out forms and checklists is a waste of their time. At this stage, even if you introduce the process it is of no help since your project is heavily dependent on the co-operation of the team. It is critical for a project manager to communicate effectively with the team and weigh in the pros & cons with them so that they turn from being ‘resistant’ to ‘leading’ (or even supportive).
2. Define ownership
Once you understand your stakeholders’ requirements, the next step is to define who delivers them. Make sure the project scope is divided into activities with ownership defined for each task. This will help you in two specific ways. When schedule or cost start getting affected, you will know who to go to in order to fix it. Simultaneously, you will also know who’s getting most affected by the delay or the change in cost. As a PM, it is also your job to keep all your stakeholders informed of all that is going on and plan for the future activities.
3. Never micro-manage
This is specifically true for your team members. Maybe everything is not going well and it is your job to monitor the project. That does not mean you will track each and every movement of your team members. People have their own schedules and deadlines. They are working on multiple projects and might not be always available. To avoid communication issues, projects can have daily or weekly meetings for everyone to talk about their progress.
4. Know your escalation matrix
When the technical lead on a project says that he knows how to handle the situation, but you sense that replacing that one component on the designs is going to drive up the costs; or that the part will have to be imported which is going to affect the schedule then you need to involve the procurement experts to give you the best solution.
The key is understanding that your different stakeholders have different expertise which needs to be leveraged at the right time. So, know your escalation matrix and know when to apply it!
And when everything is going as planned, it’s always a good idea to keep your stakeholders’ informed as per their engagement levels.
5. Team that stays together, wins together
There will be times of disagreement. But keep reinforcing in your team that they are not in this for their “job titles” or their “departments”. Help different teams break silos by communicating often, and at times even encouraging them to look at each other’s perspective. Yes, it’s easier said than done but the best teams do it and there is way your team can do it too!
Let me know what you think about my post and what would you like me write about next :)
