One primary objective in project management is to create satisfied stakeholders. Whether it’s helping users do their jobs more efficiently or enabling the leadership team to increase the organization’s revenue levels, meeting and exceeding stakeholders’ expectations is a big part of the job. But project teams that leave it at that may end up missing opportunities for improvement.
Savvy Project Teams are keenly aware how important it is to maximize their relationships with satisfied stakeholders. They understand the power a happy end user or project sponsor can have over other customers, and they also know these same people are often instrumental in helping to identify which of the project office’s strategies are most effective and why.
If your project management team would like to reap greater rewards for its efforts, follow these 4 tips and start getting the most out of every satisfied stakeholder.
1 – Find out why they’re happy. Knowing where your team found success with stakeholders on each project will help you to achieve consistently good results on future projects, too. Were they pleased with the coordination around work disruptions? Did the Project Team shine when it came to soliciting users input on key strategic discussions? Was communication handled well?
Project surveys—those conducted while the project is still underway as well as the standard questionnaires distributed after a project is complete—are a good starting point. Whenever stakeholders indicate satisfaction, take the time to evaluate the team’s approach in those areas and determine which successful practices can be applied to other areas that may be receiving less-favorable feedback.
2 – Ask them where you can do better. In addition to pointing out where the project team has done well, satisfied stakeholders are also often able to provide very candid—and very useful—insight on where you have opportunities for improvement. Because sponsors, customers, and end users have different perspectives on a project’s activities and impacts than PMP®s usually do, suggestions may be unexpected, targeting areas the project team hadn’t previously considered as needing further upgrades.
Asking for this kind of targeted feedback is typically best done after the user surveys have been tallied, rather than as part of the survey itself. Identify where the survey results indicate a potential weakness and ask stakeholders for more information about those areas, remembering that soliciting specific feedback individually is usually the most effective approach. It allows stakeholders to discuss the details of where they felt efforts could have been enhanced or more finely tuned, or perhaps where activities were appropriate but expectations hadn’t been well developed.
3 – Enlist their help as project champions. Those individuals who already believe in your team’s ability to achieve project success are perfect candidates for the role of champion on the next project. Because they’ve experienced an entire project lifecycle—including the challenges and glitches—yet still saw achievables being reached in the end, they’re in a good position to help others do the same. These non-Project Team representatives are also useful because users and sponsors can more easily relate to them.
4 – Include them in your next open house. Satisfied stakeholders are a great addition to any project PR event. Consider giving them a high-visibility role in the next open house where they can tell others about what your team does particularly well. Maximize their participation by providing them with suggested talking point and any metrics or other data you feel would be helpful. Be sure you give them an opportunity to preview any graphics, photos, or other visual aids you plan to post in their area of the event so they can be prepared to discuss them.
4 Surprising Ways To Upset The Leadership Team
While PMP®s already know the importance of adhering to budgets and keeping end users happy, there are some other, less obvious missteps that might spark the ire of the executives. If your project team finds itself on the receiving end of unexpected high-level scrutiny or dissatisfaction, take a minute to see if you’ve inadvertently taken an action that sometimes doesn’t sit well with executive groups.
1 – Communicating directly with end users. Rarely will the leadership team want to review every message between end users and the project team, but some executives are hyper-sensitive about how and when certain pieces of information are relayed to individuals under their purview. They may be keen to soften the blow when the news isn’t likely to be to end users’ liking or they might just be control freaks. It’s also possible that they want to act as a gateway for any requests or feedback end users try to relay directly to the project team. Either way, your team’s good intentions and strong communication skills could undermine your relationship with the leadership-level stakeholders. During the project’s planning phase, be sure to confirm everyone’s expectations when it comes to communicating news and other information.
2 – Bringing a project in too far under budget. Whether it’s due to falling material costs or simply great negotiation skills on the part of the team’s PMP®s, a project that’s completed well under budget could lead to funding problems or other issues down the road. The executive group may be skeptical of future budget projections, skimping just because they think they can. Or they may start siphoning funds from other projects the Project Team is overseeing, expecting the team will be able to bring them in under budget as well. Neither is a good situation, and may put PMP®s in difficult circumstances later. Any significant deviation from the approved budget should be highlighted and explained as soon as it’s identified, so that stakeholders can better understand why expenditures aren’t jiving with the projections. Don’t let an anomaly become the expected.
3 – Choosing vendors without consulting key stakeholders. There may be times when an influential sponsor wants to utilize a vendor of their own choosing on a project. If the Project Team isn’t aware of that preference—or if the external partner isn’t on any approved vendor list that may already exist and must be added—it could be an uncomfortable situation for the team. The organization may be left to terminate the services of a vendor that has already been contracted for the project, which could lead to additional costs. The new vendor may also take some time to come up to speed on their role, putting the project behind schedule. If there’s any inkling that a high-level stakeholder may want to offer their input on which outside parties are used, the team should plan to vet the vendor list with them early in the project’s lifecycle.
4 – Executing multiple projects at once. Because most executive sponsors have little knowledge of advanced project management methodologies, they could panic when they discover the Project Team isn’t focused solely on their pet project. It’s possible they’ll begin micromanaging (or worse). Ironically, because many organizations run a lean project office to keep staffing and overhead levels low, the leadership group itself could have a difficult time reconciling their desire for personalized service with the need to maintain an efficient organization. If this translates into a request for a smaller but dedicated project team, the Project Team will need to decide quickly if, given the current workload, they can support that structure or if they’ll need to push back.