project management

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Stakeholder Management Best Practices

Are you actively managing project stakeholders?

Stakeholder Management Best Practices audio

Stakeholder Management Best Practices

Stakeholder management is as key to a successful project outcome as communications management. Today I want to focus on best practices relating to managing stakeholders on projects.

For complete clarity about stakeholder management, let’s look at it from the angle of:

  • What a stakeholder is
  • Who stakeholders are
  • Why you must do stakeholder management
  • When to communicate

Stakeholder definition

What is a stakeholder? Stakeholders are people who are actively involved in projects, who exert influence on projects and whose interests may be positively/negatively affected by projects. Source: PMBOK

Who are stakeholders?

The key stakeholders on projects are the project manager, project team members, the project sponsor, the customer and the performing organization. Other stakeholders could include:

  • Internal and external owners and funders
  • Sellers and contractors
  • Team members & their families
  • Government agencies and media outlets
  • Society at large

Why do stakeholder management?

On any project a project manager needs to identify project stakeholders in order to determine their requirements and to manage and influence the requirements. Identify stakeholders during initiation phase of Project life cycle. Project Life Cycle

Throughout the project you need to actively manage the stakeholder’s requirements and expectations. Influencing the organisation involves the ability to ‘get things done’. This requires from a project manager an understanding of both formal and informal structure of the organisation involved, for example the customers, partners, contractors, office politics etc.

One golden rule to remember is when there is a difference between stakeholders, it should be resolved in favour of the customer. Finding appropriate resolutions to such differences can be a major challenge of project management.

The reason why you need to do stakeholder management is to drive stakeholder satisfaction. This requires reliable, dependable, repeatable effort from your side. You need to know the needs and expectations of stakeholders and invest in those needs. A frequent investment (weekly, ever daily) in the needs of the stakeholders helps projects to be successful.

When to communicate with stakeholders?

You need to communicate with your project stakeholders a number of times as documented in your communications plan:

  • Beginning of a project
  • Weekly at progress meetings
  • Regular Reviews and reporting
  • At the end of a project

In summary a project manager needs to manage and influence stakeholder requirements to ensure a successful project.

In the next blog post about stakeholder management, I am going to share some best practices tools that you can use to really ensure customer satisfaction.

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About the author: Linky van der Merwe is a former Microsoft Project Management Consultant and an IT Project Manager with 14 years IT industry experience and 11 years Project Management experience.

She consults with small-medium business owners and service professionals about project management and project processes, best practices and successful delivery through projects. She is most experienced in corporate infrastructure projects (upgrades, migration, deployment etc) and process optimisation. She can be reached at linky@virtualprojectconsulting.com

Make Projects Work for You

Linky

Make projects work for your business!

Where the business owner and service professional learn more about project management skills, project management tools and templates and project management methodologies for managing business projects.

 

An effective way to speed up results with business projects is to apply a simple Project Management framework to deliver your projects on time, to budget and with desired quality.

For solutions to:

  • WHAT project management is,
  • WHY your business needs projects,
  • HOW to do project management,
  • WHEN to start a project and
  • WHO must do the work

Discover a basic tool to successful project management, download the Project Management Toolkit for all your business project management needs.

Take Action today and start making a positive difference to your business.

Linky

What Is Project Success?

Why excellence in project management is not enough

By Robert Buttrick Projects must create value

The only reason for undertaking a project is to add value to an organisation in pursuit of strategic objectives. A project, which does not do this is useless or a  sink for scarce resources.

Projects, however, do not directly create value. Projects deliver new capability to an organisation, but it is the organisation itself, which creates value by using those capabilities. Value creation (benefits realisation) usually happens after a project has been completed.

If a project is truly a vehicle of change which will add value, it must have:

  • Alignment: It is aligned to the company strategy
  • Priority: It has high priority relative to other change initiatives which may use the same resources
  • Positive impact: It impacts somebody’s budget, somewhere in the organisation either by decreased costs or increased revenues. Meaning of success

Define project success in project managment

When talking about successful projects we must understand what the word “successful” means. Success is too often interpreted through the differing eyes of stakeholders.

Successful project management ensures the delivery of a specified scope, on time and to budget. It is related to how efficiently a project is managed. This should be assessed during the project closure review, documented in a project closure report and measured by timeliness of delivery milestones, adherence to budgets and quality. This is associated with the role of the project manager.

A successful project realises the business objectives it was set up to achieve as stated in a business casea. It is related to the effectiveness of the project in meeting the objectives set. The post implementation review (post-project review) assesses this. Measures of success here must be indicative of the business objectives being achieved. This review therefore has to happen some time after the output of the project has been put into use. It is associated with the role of the project sponsorb. Financial success

A successful company drives towards its strategic objectives whilst fulfilling expectations of shareholders, managers, employees and other stakeholdersc. Measures for this are at a corporate level and should be financial and non-financial (e.g. balanced score card). This is associated with the role of the Chief Executive.

What actually counts is whether the organisation, as a whole, is successful or not. The likelihood of business success is increased if the projects undertaken align with the organisation’s strategy. Success can be enhanced if best practice project management is undertaken. The aim is to ensure the linkage from successful project management to successful projects to a successful company remains effective.

How to measure and realise benefits

For benefits realisation and measurement to be effective therefore, an organisation must have:

  1. A business strategy and goals communicated in sufficient detail to be useful to decision makers: this will facilitate strategic alignment
  2. A business plan, which explicitly demonstrates how the company’s resources are to be used in operating the organisation in its current state and investing in future capabilities in order to achieve future benefits;
  3. Measures by which the whole organisation can monitor its progress towards strategic objectives and may be used to aid prioritisation decisions.

Without these three fundamentals, business-led, or benefits-driven project management has little to tie into, regardless of how well each individual project is managed or directed.

GLOSSARY EXPLAINING TERMS USED:

  1. BUSINESS CASE: A document outlining the justification for the initiation of a project. It includes a description of the business problem (or opportunity), a list of the available solution options, their associated costs and benefits and a preferred option for approval
  2. PROJECT SPONSOR: Individual or group within organization that provides the financial resources for the project.
  3. STAKEHOLDERS: Individual and organizations that are actively involved in the project or whose interests may b positively or negatively affected as a result of project execution or completion; also some-one who exert influence over the project and its results.

References

This article is adapted from Part 2 of The Project Workout, 4th edition, Robert Buttrick, Financial Times/Prentice Hall, 2009.

Do you think your business projects are creating value?  Please share your thoughts……

Linky

6 Reasons To Be A Project Management Consultant

6 Reasons To Be a Project Management Consultant

to Business Owners and Service Professionals

Following on from my previous blog post on ‘About Project Management Passion’, I wanted to explain Virtual Project Consulting’s 6 reasons for being Project Management Consultants to Business Owners and Service Professionals.

1. Core Desire To Help

As a Project Management Professional it is my core desire to help, equip and empower people to reach their full potential. I realized one way of doing this is to combine my calling to help more people with the sharing of my knowledge and experience in Project Management as a business tool. If life is about learning, earning and returning, you could say that my Project Management Consulting business is about returning my project management knowledge, skills and experience of the past 11 years to help other people grow.

In choosing a name for my Project Management Consulting Business, I decided on a name that will also work for doing business online with clients over the internet.  Hence the choice of VIRTUAL PROJECT CONSULTING.

What does VIRTUAL mean to me?  Virtual has several meanings as portrayed in the following graphic:

2. Our Vision

As part of our vision to be the Service Provider of choice for Project Management Consulting and related Products on how to manage successful projects in your business, the VIRTUAL component means that you can expect practical, effective and fundamental advice from us. We are the Virtual Project Manager in your business, without actually being there.

3. Support Our Mission

I believe in consistently delivering Professional Project Management Consulting Services:

  • That adds value
  • That meets the needs of clients
  • That provides inspirational leadership
  • That empowers people by equipping them with skills and knowledge required to be successful in business.
  • That is based on ethical business principles

4. Create A Community

Through interaction with different business owners and service professionals I want to use Virtual Project Consulting as the company vehicle to build a community of people who are passionate about what they do, to connect, to learn, to grow and to give back. Share success stories and learn from one another’s horror stories of what can go wrong in business. Aspiring project managers can read more Project Management related articles here.

5. Fill A Need

Many business owners and service professionals are entrepreneurs with no or very little project management training or experience.  Any-one starting out on their own or being a small to medium business, cannot afford to employ a project manager full time for the occasional projects required to be finished from time to time. This is where Virtual Project Consulting will fulfill the need of providing a basic project management methodology and process, guidelines and tools, as well as ready-to-use project management templates that can be customized according to your own needs.  These can be downloaded instantly and used by any-one with little or no project management experience. Solid As A Rock Project Toolkit will make you successful in managing your own business projects.

For service professionals who require assistance with their Online Marketing Strategy, I can help you plan and implement your Internet marketing plan helping you to attract more customers and increase sales for your business.

6. Community Involvement

One of my other passions that I care for deeply is educating people, including adults and school children. Through proper education they can too aspire to a better life. In my country we have a majority of people who are half-educated or completely illiterate – even in these modern times.

I aspire to donate a percentage of all earnings from Virtual Project Consulting to organizations that are positioned to educate less privileged children and adults. Through this my clients will also make a contribution to a good cause that can change the lives of many individuals in this country.

Please comment if you can associate with being a principled driven business who is passionate about what you do! Share your story with us.

Cape Town Waterfront with Soccer 2010 World Cup Stadium

Linky

15 PROJECT MANAGEMENT TIPS

VIRTUAL PROJECT CONSULTING

Presents project management tips:

1.   What is a project? 

A project is a temporary endeavor undertaken to create a unique product, service or result. It has a clear start and finish, a set of defined goals and objectives and a  sequence of activities.

2.   What is a good project definition? 

A project has a beginning and an end and is unique; unlike operations that are ongoing. It is about managing team priorities to deliver within time, cost and quality constraints.

3.   Why do we need projects? 

Some reasons why we need projects in business today are tighter budgets, diminishing resources, more time constraints, more competition and to achieve service excellence.

4.   What are examples of projects?

Examples of projects are:

  • developing a new product or service
  • implementation of strategic objectives 
  • restructuring your business organization
  • constructing a new facility
  • office move or re-arranging the office
  • planning a special event

5.   What is project management?

The application of knowledge, skills, tools and techniques to projects to meet project requirements and deliver projects successfully within budget, on time and with desired quality.

6.   What does project management comprise of?

Project management comprise of a set of skills. Also required is:

  • Specialist knowledge, skills and experience are required to reduce the level of risk within a project and thereby enhance its likelihood of success.
  • A suite of tools for example document templates.
  • A series of processes. In professional project management various management techniques and processes are required to monitor and control time, cost, quality and scope on projects.

7.   What is a project methodology? 

A methodology is a set of methods, processes and practices that are repeatedly carried out as part of a project life cycle to deliver projects. The key concept is that you repeat the same steps for every project you undertake, and by doing that, you will gain efficiencies in your approach.

8.   What is the power of project management? 

The power of project management is that it makes it possible to focus on priorities, measure and track performance.

9.   What are the industries that use project management?

Project management is used in industries like online publishing, banking, software development, information technology and manufacturing.

10.       What skills do project managers need? 

Project managers need to be very skilled in leadership, communications, human resources-, quality-, time-, cost management and integration.

11.       What are the benefits of project management?

Some benefits of having project management in your business are:

  • it helps to meet or exceed customer expectations 
  • it maximizes the use of resources (time, people, money, space)
  • it brings projects to successful conclusion within budget, on time and with desired quality
  • it documents what was done for future reference
  • it builds confidence in your team for future projects.

12.       How is project management different from management?

In project management work is managed towards a single objective for a unique endeavor with a definite beginning and an end. In general management it is about multiple related objectives to manage the workload in an operations environment where work is done continuously.

13.       How are projects different from standard business operational activities?

  • Projects are unique and do not involve repetitive processes
  • Projects have a defined timescale. They have a clearly specified start and end date within which the deliverables must be produced to meet a specified customer requirement
  • A project have an approved budget
  • Projects have limited resources like labour, equipment, material
  • Projects achieve beneficial change. The purpose of a project, typically, is to improve an organization through the implementation of business change. 

14.       Who is the governing body for project management?

The Project Management Institute, or known as the PMI. The Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK) is prescribed as their project management handbook.

15.       Is there a special qualification for Project Managers?

The Project Management certification is called the Project Management Professional (PMP). The the title of a PMP certification is known and acknowledged worldwide.

Your VirtualPM

Linky

PS: For related Project Management articles, read here.

PPS: To use a Project Management Toolkit in your business, have a look at the Solid as a Rock here.

Linky

ABOUT PROJECT MANAGEMENT PASSION

Can one be passionate about project management?

Wikipedia’s definition of PASSION as an emotion, is a strong feeling about a subject, usually of intense desire and attraction.

In a learning context, PASSION can be expressed as a feeling of unusual excitement, enthusiasm or compelling emotion towards a subject, idea. A person is said to have a passion for something when they have a strong positive affinity for it.

I would say that I qualify to be labeled as a passionate project manager. It all started in school with my desire to help people, also to help themselves. This influenced my decision to do a Social Work degree, which is not the kind of ‘help’ that I intended. I finished my degree, but in Psychology and from there went on to obtain an Information Technology qualification. My first real job was behind the computer at a corporate Life Insurance company, not as an IT specialist, but as a Project Administrator.

Being in a supportive role, I naturally transgressed into a technical IT support role with a Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer (MCSE) qualification to earn the respect of my mostly male colleagues. As part of a Server Support team and being the only female for years, all the project management work which required much communication skills, was passed on to me.

One of my managers recognized my natural talent and skills as a flair for project management and sent me for proper project management training, which was also training in a project management methodology. I never looked back… A few years later (2004), I gained the Project Management Professional (PMP) Certification.

Throughout years of studying and learning on the job, I was blessed with the addition of 3 beautiful children that enriched my life to the point that I actually gave up my full-time, permanent position and started to work in contract project management (2 years at Microsoft Consulting Services). This way I had the flexibility to work part-time and still continue with a professional career.

It was also during these years that I discovered Robert Kiyasaki’s books, Rich Dad Poor Dad, Cashflow etc which really brought about a huge mind shift for me in how I view work.  Finally, I was on my way from being a permanent employee (working hard to enrich other people) to being a self-employed professional and eventually a business owner.  I find the final transition to being a business owner a bit harder and with a steep learning curve. However, working hard for yourself and your own (and family’s) financial freedom is one of the most satisfying journeys of my life so far.

After establishing a successful home business 1.5 years ago (leveraging other people’s time, making a consistent profit) and learning much about running a small business, I ventured into the world of having an Internet-based business. Here I was much influenced by people like Rich Schefren, Tellman Knudson, Stompernet, Mike Filsaime, Jimmy Brown to name a few who are all highly successful and influential Internet Marketers. I am discovering more people who I resonate with and like to learn from every day.

Now I am faced with a steeper learning curve than ever before (maybe as intense as becoming a parent for the first time).  I have a hard time juggling between learning, business building, information overload (emails, websites and meeting new people, networking etc) on the one hand, while continuing with a professional career and the needs and demands from a 5-person family on the other.

You may be wondering why I am sharing all of this with you?!

It is to prove that my core desire is still prevailing after all these years – my aspiration to help people, to equip people and to empower people to reach their full potential. This is part of a basic human need to self-actualization (see Maslow’s hierargy of basic human needs). If life is about learning, earning and returning, you could say that my Project Management Consulting business is about returning my project management knowledge, skills and experience of the past 11 years to help other people grow.

If you are also passionate about what you do, why not share it as a comment!

If you have business projects and you want to master project management, click here.

Linky

Efficiency Brings Effective Project Management

Efficiency vs Effectiveness

Effective Project Management
Effective Project Management

According to Wikipedia, a good way to distinguish between effectiveness and efficiency is to understand that effectiveness relates to ‘getting the right things done or setting right targets to achieve an overall goal (the effect)’. Efficiency relates to ‘doing things in the most economical way (good input to output ratio)’.

Companies are always looking, especially in this economy, for ways to make their work more efficient. This means new projects need to be efficient and streamlined: no wasting a company’s time or money. There is a high demand from corporations for technology that increases staff efficiency while keeping business costs reasonable. Poor project management is often the cause of lost revenue and resources for many businesses.

Billions are lost every year due to poor project management like when projects are handled inefficiently, dragged out beyond deadlines, or high costs beyond their means. Many different skill sets are necessary to ensure effective project management.

Effective project management eliminates any unnecessary costs associated with the project, making the work as cost-effective as possible. The project manager is responsible for keeping the project within the allotted budget. Keeping within budget can also keep the scope of the project in check; too often, both a project, and subsequently its budget, can grow out of control. Companies will pay for this mistake – a dual penalty of lost revenue and lost time.

Effective project management also guarantees efficient work by contractors for a task, matching the highest quality work to the best price. The responsibilities of project management are not limited to collecting bids from qualified individuals in order to complete the project, but also to determine if the company does in fact have the experience and knowledge to complete the work well. The project manager truly has to consider which company is best-suited for the task at hand.

A project manager must make sure that the project is meeting deadlines and keeping goals in sight. Effective project management will utilize software and other technology available to keep the project on target and meet scheduled goals. A company can lose a lot of money very quickly when one or more of its projects get off schedule.

Effective project managers ensure that all projects will be completed on time, within budget and with quality. They are responsible to control every aspect of the project, and regularly reporting its status back to company officials. An effective project management professional or firm can bring any project under control, no matter how unfocused or inefficient it was to begin with; their services can end up saving corporations millions in better-managed time and resources. It is commonplace now for companies to outsource their project management to consulting professionals or firms that will maximize efficiency and bring projects to completion within or even under budgets and deadlines, thus saving company resources.

As part of our Mission at Virtual Project Consulting, consistent delivery of Professional Project Management Consulting Services, Linky provides consulting to small to medium business owners and service professionals and supplies a Solid-as-a-Rock project management toolkit to help you be efficient in managing your business projects! Try it out now for only $27.


Linky

Project Management is not the enemy

Once there was a guy, called Henry. He was the proud owner of a successful small business.  He was passionate about his golf academy as this related to his keen interest in golf.  He appointed some coaches to supply golf training to clients.  This business gave him the excuse to spend as much time on the golf course as he wanted.  He had many ideas for new systems, products and packages that he wanted to implement at the golf academy to ensure business growth.  However, he didn’t use a systematic approach to implement each of these ideas. 

One day he decided that it’s time to put in that new system, but he had no idea what to budget for the roll-out of the system from beginning to end. He had no idea of the effort and resources required to deploy the system and therefore he didn’t have an end date for when this should all be done.  He had dived right in and got started, because that’s the way he was used to doing business and getting things done. 

The fact that the system implementation took 3 months longer than anticipated didn’t bother him at first, but the associated costs and lack of adequate resources gave him a huge shock.  His ideas for new products and additional golf lesson packages were dependant on the new system being installed.  For the first time he realised that he was trying to do all of this without a proper business strategy and vision, without a proper plan and without hiring the right people to assist him with the work.  He hasn’t heard of the term Project Management, but he realised that he needed a process and quickly!

Another guy, called Steven, also had a small business which he was very passionate about.  He owned a Marketing and Design Company that specialised in helping small and medium-sized, entrepreneurial businesses get the most of their marketing budget. 

He believed in having a vision, a business strategy to guide business growth and in objectives to reach the strategic goals.  He made a point of doing quarterly planning which usually helped him to identify at least two new business projects.  To him Project Management was no enemy, but the way to get results fast.

Each project was planned properly, budgeted for, with adequate time and resources allocated to it. By applying basic Project Management principles and a simple process, he managed to complete the projects successfully within 6 months.  This resulted in a steady business growth pattern and before long Steven was honoured as national business man of the year.  Most of his success he attributed to the fact that he used project management and sound business principles, which he embraced as his key business tools to ensure growth and success!

The biggest mistake in business is not following a plan to reach specific goals. If you are like Henry at a loss of how to approach Project Management in your business, why not start at the beginning.  Follow a simple Project Management approach that will give you the framework to do business projects and get the results you wanted.