Getting to Know the Stakeholders

There are many reasons why you should Identify Stakeholder early in the project life cycle. Most important reason is that, your stakeholders can influence the direction of the project. Based on the information that they share with you or the things that they say to other people, your project is impacted by them.

Stakeholders can be anyone who is directly or indirectly involved in the project. They can be:

• The sponsor
• The customer
• Senior management
• Functional departments
• The public
• The project team
• Alice in customer support team
• The sundry shop 100m from your project site

The bigger your project, the more stakeholders are involved. And you need to figure out how to reach out to them and understand what are their needs. As the PM, you need to find out how your project will impact them during and after it is completed. We need to find out what is the extend of influence each of the stakeholder has and how their opinions or decision will impact the course of our project.

To begin with, when identifying a stakeholder, we need to know his role, department, interests, knowledge level, expectation and influence level. Find out as much as you can about each and everyone of your stakeholders. Also, we need to find out what type of information they require, how they like it to be presented as, how much they want or need to know, etc. Some people likes a lengthy, narrative, very detailed reports. Some prefer graphs and bullet points. Some just need a one-liner.

Next, identify the impact or support that you can get from the stakeholders. Each stakeholder will impact your project differently. Some will be supportive, others nonchalant. Some don’t event want to talk about the project. Check for:

• Power/Interest
• Power/Influence
• Influence/Impact
• Salient model – group by power, urgency, and legitimacy

Then, you need to assess their reactions and responds in differing situations. Observe your stakeholders during meeting or discussions or functions. How do they talk to people? How do they respond to questions? What type of questions that can make them open up to you? What type of questions that make them clam up? Are they a risk taker or a safe player? What is their corporate style? How do they negotiate or get things done? Try to learn as much as you can about your stakeholders, not only from other people who knows them, but also through your personal encounter and observations.

Last but not least, communicate with your stakeholders. When you have found out the frequency of reporting that they prefer, make sure you do it as you have agreed. Tell them what they want to know and always ask their opinion on the progress so far. However, be careful not to allow scope creep. The reason you continuously engage your stakeholder is to gauge the health of your project from their perspective. They will take the opportunity to ask you to include extra features or new functionalities, make no mistake. But use your charm and wisdom as a project manager to manage this. Remember, project managers spend most of their time communicating, so communicate effectively and wisely.

Managing Project Communications

Who are the most important people in your project? Your stakeholders.

These are the people that will determine whether your project will fly or flop. These are the people who will tell you what, when and how they want what they want. They will tell you why they want what they want. Sometimes, they don’t really know what they think they want. Bottom line, these are the people whose needs and wants must be addressed, analysed and fulfilled.

The PMBOK Guide has one knowledge area dedicated specifically for stakeholders. And it has all to do with communicating; Project Communications Management. This is the knowledge area where processes required to ensure information are generated, distributed, stored and later disposed of. This knowledge area also tells us how and why who gets what information when.

Within the process Initiating process group, we will identify the stakeholders. We will be able to categorise our stakeholders and later disseminate information according to priorities.

Planning communication comes next under the Planning process group. During this process, we will answer the question: How and Why Who gets What information When.

In the Executing process group, we will distribute relevant information based on the plan that we have created in the previous process. We will also manage stakeholder expectation; which means we will communicate effectively to meet their needs and addressing any issues that is happening.

Throughout the project lifecycle, we will be reporting the project performance to the stakeholders. This task falls under the Monitoring and Controlling process group. Here information is collected and the project performance is presented in ways of status reports and forecast.

Remember that communication can be in many ways; internal or external, verbal or non-verbal, written or oral, formal or informal, vertical or horizontal, official and non-official. Each project team member must be equipped with the right skills to communicate effectively, within the team or with other stakeholders. When wearing a project manager’s hat, we are not only communicating project progress, we will also be required to do negotiation, conflict resolving, educating, managing expectations, etc.

Didn’t we already come to terms that project manager spends most of her time communicating?  Thus, we better make sure that we do it excellently!

 

[Image googled]

Loving Your Curves?

In project management, your curves are very important; to you and to your stakeholders. Everyone is interested to know about your S-curve.

What does an S-curve show? It shows where you are from what you have planned. It it shows how much have you spent at a point of time during the life of your project. It shows the performance of your project.

Let me show you a very nice picture of the curves that you might have.

For today, let us get to know the specific areas of the curve (Refer to PMBOK Guide 4th Edition pg.181).

Plan – Planned Value; PV, is what has been planned in the beginning: the authorized budget for the scheduled work to be accomplished. It is also known as Budgeted Cost Work Scheduled; BCWS. In short, the amount that has been planned to pay for the work scheduled.

Earned Value – EV, is the value of work performed based on the budgeted cost for the particular work. It is also known as Budgeted Cost Work Performed; BCWP. In short; the amount that has been planned to pay for the work that has been performed.

Actuals – Actual Cost; AC, is the actual spending on the actual work that has been completed. It is also known as Actual Cost Work Performed. In short, the actual amount incurred for actual work being done.

Cost Variance – CV, a measure of cost performance for the project. Based on the value, we will know whether the project is under budget or over budget.

Schedule Variance – SV, a measure of schedule performance for the project. Based on the value, we will know whether the project is behind or ahead of schedule. 

 

For both variances;

CV > 0 == Under budget

PV > 0 == Ahead of schedule

You could also derive measure of efficiency from these values:

Cost Performance Index – CPI, is the measure of efficiency of the value of work done and how well monies are spent.

Schedule Performance Index – SPI, is the measure of efficiency of time scheduled; it is a measure of progressed achieved compared to progress planned.

The S-curve is a popular representation of Earned Value Management. It is a performance measurement technique that is comparing actual collected values against the baselines that was set at the beginning of the project. It integrates cost, scope and schedule measures in one presentation.

At a point of time, the data for EV, PV and AC is collected for reporting. From the value, the project team will be able to assess the project performance so far. A cumulative data collection will enable the plotting of the S-curve to present the project performance in a graphic view. Note: Include this in your status report to the stakeholders and senior management.

So, if you plot your S-curve for this month, how does it look like?

And you thought when I talked about curves in the beginning, it has nothing to do with project management. Hah!

NOTE: Earned Value Management is the tools and techniques for the Process Group: Control Costs

[S-Curve graph is modified from NASA EVM Tutorial: http://evm.nasa.gov/analysis.html] 

Integration Management: Develop Project Charter

Let’s talk about Integration Management. If you remember Integration Management is the first Knowledge Area in PMBOK Guide (4th Edition). There are 6 Process Groups that goes under Integration Management. The are:

In one of my earlier post, I have explain how Project Charter exists in every project. Only, most of the time, a lot of its contents are scattered across the project network. Today, we are going to look at this first process group in Integration Management knowledge area closely. We are going to see what is needed to get the Project Charter recognised and agreed upon amongst the project members.

According to PMBOK Guide (4th Edition), all process groups will have their own inputs, tools and techniques, and finally; outputs. To develop a charter these are the information required:

Statement of Work (SOW) is a narrative description of the product deliveries. It is developed from the business needs, scope of work and strategic plan of the organisation’s strategic goals. For internal projects, the SOW is prepared by the project initiator, while for external projects, it is received from the customer.

Business Case is merely the justification to proceed with the project. It is influenced by several factors; market demand, organisational need, customer request, technological advance, legal requirement, ecological impact or social need.

Contract can be one of the input especially when the project is external.

EEF is Enterprise Environmental Factors which include but not limited to industry standards or organisation infrastructure. OPA is Organisational Process Assets; this refers to templates or historical documents which already exist in the organisation. OPA also refers to lessons learned from previous projects.

The tools and techniques that is required to produce the project charter is Expert Judgment. The expertise is provided by specific individuals or a group of professionals with the required knowledge of specific areas. This can come from variety of sources, not limited to:

• other unit or department in the organisation
• consultants
• stakeholders
• professional and technical associations
• Industry group
• Subject matter experts
• Project Management Office (PMO), etc.

The output for this process is obviously the Project Charter. It documents the business needs, current understanding of customer’s needs, and the description of the products or services that is intended to be delivered.

Project Charter – It’s there, but hidden

Every project will have a Charter; we just recognise it with different names. This is the basis of any project in my opinion. It details, amongst others:

• business case,
• project objectives and scope,
• high level requirements in terms of product, budget and schedule,
• list of stakeholders,
• potential risks,
• ROI, etc.

In real life project management, these information are scattered across the project network, some written down, some in emails, some in someone's head. The challenge is to put all this on paper and get everyone to be aware of it (and agree). From PMI perspective, one more important content of the Project Charter, is the recognition of the Project Manager. This document, gives the authority to the assigned project manager to manage the said project.

Throughout the project phase, Project Charter must be the main reference document to ensure that projects are delivered as per required by the customer and/or sponsor. The rest of the project documents are supporting documents for Project Charter; they detailed out what has been stated in the Charter. And Project Management Plan is the main document that compiles the rest of the project plans and project documents.

Ideally this piece of document which contains the high level information about the intended project should be the Holy Grail for all project managers. This is true when we want to control scope creeps, and change requests.

The creation of Project Charter is done very early in the project. It is during the Project Initialization and within the Project Integration Management. Every project manager must ensure that a project charter is in place before any project work starts.

The Nine Knowledge Areas

These are the nine knowledge areas specified in the PMBOK Guide 4th Edition by PMI.

You have seen processes grouped by Process Groups in the previous entry. Now, processes are grouped by their Knowledge Areas.

Integration Management
Includes the processes needed to identify, define, combine, unify and coordinate the various processes and project activities within the Project Management Process Groups. This is one Knowledge Area which is the responsibility of the Project Manger alone.

Scope Management
Includes the processes required to ensure that the project includes all the work required, and ONLY the work required, to complete the project successfully.

Time Management
Includes the processes required to ensure the project (including all project activities) are completed within the agreed schedule.

Cost Management
Includes the processes required for estimating, budgeting and cost control while making sure the project is completed within the approved budget.

Quality Management
Includes the processes and activities of the performing organization that determine the quality policies, objectives and responsibilities so that the project will satisfy the needs of which it was undertaken. Continuous process improvement is the important aspect of this knowledge area.

Human Resource Management
Includes the processes that organize, manage and lead the project team. This involves defining roles and responsibilities, identifying resource availability as well as the professional (and personal) development of the team members.

Communication Management
Includes the processes required to ensure timely and appropriate generation, collection, distribution, storage, retrieval and ultimate disposal of project information. Project Managers spend majority of their time communicating with various people, including stakeholders, contractors and project team members. As such it is important that information is being managed properly.

Risk Management
Includes the processes of conducting risk management planning, identification, analysis, response planning and monitoring and control of project risks. The objectives are to increase the probability and impact of opportunities and decreasing the probability and impact of threats.

Procurement Management
Includes the processes necessary to purchase or acquire products and/or services from parties outside from the project team; i.e.: contractors, vendors, etc.

 

The Project Management Process Groups and Knowledge Areas can be mapped in a tabular format, which shows the processes involved at each level.

The PMBOK Guide 4th Edition explains all the processes involved based on their knowledge areas. All processes have three things in common; they have inputs, tools and techniques, and outputs.

If you ask me do we have to memorise all the processes with their inputs, tools and techniques and outputs, well, the answer is YES! But don’t worry, as you go along the learning process, you will see that it comes easier as time goes by. Most importantly, we have to understand why it is so.