Redefining Project Success

If you were asked, “What defines a successful project?” what would your answer be?

Recently, one of our clients asked me to provide an explanation for the inclusion of stakeholder management in the new PMBOK® Guide. With a little help from our editorial staff, this is what I sent them:

Traditionally, project managers have defined project success as “being on time” and “within budget.”  But our concept of project success is evolving. Today, while budget, schedule and scope management remain fundamental, our organizations need more. Successful project outcomes now include adding value to the organization and satisfying project customers.

But that’s just the outcome. The customer is just one of many stakeholders encountered as a project unfolds, each of them with concerns, interests, and an agenda. A decade ago, project management literature discussed stakeholders in a somewhat negative light; we often heard project managers complain about them. Their needs were often viewed as a distraction from the real work of the project. Today, however, our thinking has evolved. We now realize that input from all the stakeholders in a project is valuable and plays a key role in defining requirements and identifying risks. Today, we seek not only to manage and control the expectations of those affected by our projects, but to engage them as partners in our success.

This evolution is visible in the heightened emphasis placed on Project Stakeholder Management in the Project Management Institute’s newly released 5th edition of A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK Guide). No longer peripheral to project management, managing stakeholders is now recognized as a Knowledge Area in its own right.

The PMBOK® Guide defines a stakeholder as an “individual, group, or organization who may affect, be affected by, or perceive itself to be affected by a decision, activity, or outcome of a project.”  As you might expect, this covers a wide range of people.  Is your stakeholder a team member, a sponsor, a vendor, a business unit, a partner, a creditor, a customer, the general public?  In the past, a project manager may not have even recognized or understood the impact of a project on a particular individual or group. Lacking knowledge of the project’s impacts on them, he may have been negligent in communicating key decisions or changes, and may even have put the project’s completion or success in jeopardy by neglecting a key stakeholder. To correct this tendency, the new PMBOK® Guide gives project managers tools to identify stakeholders, gauge their level of impact on the project, and estimate their degree of engagement.

    Identifying Stakeholders. The PMBOK® Guide suggests that we start with the project charter and procurement documents to help identify stakeholders. These will include:
•    Internal stakeholders: The project manager, internal customer(s) or users, members of the PMO, functional managers and sponsors as well as other influencers likely to be affected by the project’s progress within the organization.
•    External stakeholders:  These include contractors and vendors who are external to the project organization, as well as external users or customers and any groups in the wider public that may be impacted by the project.
Stakeholder Analysis. Next, the project manager must educate herself and the team about the stakeholders, reviewing their roles, interests, knowledge, expectations, and influence level, along with their potential impact. The PMBOK® Guide offers several matrices helpful in gauging stakeholder influence and impact. You’ll want to determine who are your:
•    Allies:  those who are supportive of the project manager and team no matter what goes wrong.  They are stabilizers on the project and can be invaluable resources for the project team.
•    Opponents:  This group offer roadblocks to the project manager and team.  This is your challenging group, but with foresight and planning, they can be successfully managed.
•    Ambivalents:  These stakeholders sit on the fence.  When things go well, they are allies.  When things go poorly, they are opponents.  The skill is to plan for their behavior when you think they will be opponents, and try to turn them into allies (excerpted from Project Management Essentials, Third Edition, forthcoming Summer 2013 from Maven House Press).

No matter what, all stakeholders are tuned in to “what’s in it for me.”  This is why you need to understand their expectations, fears and motivations. More than “managing” these people who can support and assist or derail your efforts, today’s project manager must seek to “engage” them, turning those who are negative or indifferent into proponents for change.

Communicate to Engage. As with most things in life, communication is key.  A project manager needs to ensure that accurate, clear communication flows to each stakeholder. The primary tool for engagement is the communications management plan. The project manager must determine not only what information they will need to become or remain engaged with the project, but their preferred format and frequency of communication. Project stakeholders may have differing ideas as to what is important … for some it might be budget; for others it may be schedule or quality. Still others may be primarily concerned with the broader external effects of the project – environmental or competitive concerns.  The project manager, with assistance from the team, needs to ensure that the requirements and expectations of each stakeholder are addressed.

It’s also important to remember that, if communication flows only one way, it isn’t really communication! The input from stakeholders plays a vital role in shaping project plans, identifying project risks, and monitoring project execution. Be sure to ask, not just tell.

So, what is project success? The evolving discipline of project management keeps redefining it, suiting project management processes to the demands of our times.