Don’t underestimate the importance of a Stakeholder Management Plan
The charter, the schedule, and the project management plan get all the glory, but the stakeholder register is key to understanding the others. After all, a project takes people not just to perform the work but also to benefit from the product. Without understanding the stakeholders’ needs, a project will likely miss the mark. This translates not just to a lost opportunity for the organization but also wasted time, money, and goodwill.
The stakeholder management plan also helps keep track of triple constraint impact. We often focus on the project’s priorities, but constraints also exist at the stakeholder and requirement levels. Understanding what makes each stakeholder tick is integral to successfully managing those needs.
Project managers often fall into the trap of believing stakeholder management is logical and thus can be done on the fly. Others may think their interpersonal skills enable stakeholder management to flow naturally. Seasoned project managers know better, aware of the manners in which stakeholder attitudes may change throughout the project. Being aware of the stakeholder’s desires and personalities can help the PM prepare for, and avoid issues.
Some projects run into difficulties due to the stakeholder management plan not being written down, but this often stems not from laziness but rather a mistaken belief that the PM “knows all about the stakeholders.” Project managers, no matter their tenure in the organization, should not fall into this trap. Crafting the stakeholder management plan:
- Helps other team members, whose tenure and experience may be limited and not have relationships with the stakeholders. Think about when you first started working for your company, or when you first took on your current role. Your network was likely limited both in terms of knowledge depth and breadth. A well-curated list of stakeholders can save your team from spinning around in circles to find out who is affected by the project and to what degree.
- Can assist when a stakeholder leaves the organization and a new one comes into the vacated role. It would be ideal to have a project where the stakeholders do not change…but that seldom happens. People retire, take new jobs, are moved to new roles; while some may adequately train their replacements and help them understand their role in the project; PMs should not assume this would always happen. The stakeholder register can help identify gaps and prepare for such personnel transitions.
- Can help clear misunderstandings. Conflict is unavoidable in projects, but the team should be well-versed on how to solve it. Confusion, on the other hand, can often fester if not clarified. The stakeholder register, when easily accessible by the team, can clarify roles, responsibilities, and areas of interest. Note the stakeholder interest and influence matrix will expand on the topic, so don’t rely on the register by itself.
- Can facilitate conversations on Roles & Responsibilities. The stakeholder register can help guide such conversations, proactively prompting the team to analyze who is best suited to tackle individual tasks and oversee specific areas. Vetting these duties against the involved stakeholder areas ensures no affected department is forgotten.
- Can help craft the change management plan. A successful change management plan covers the what, how, why, when, where and how of the current state: future state transition. You can get a head start by ensuring your stakeholder register is complete and thorough.
As with other project management artifacts, it’s key to remember the stakeholder management plan should be revised as needs arise. However, it should always be connected to the underlying stakeholder list. Always ask, after every conversation“, is there someone else you’d recommend I talk to?” This can help not just unlock doors, but also discover doors you didn’t know existed!
It is a good idea for the Project manager to associate themselves with Organizational Change Manager or better still have one on the team as their service is invaluable especially on complex projects, don’t ever underestimate the benefits a change manager can bring to a project team and dealing with stakeholders. Tell us your thoughts and if you create a stakeholder management plan for your projects, all the very best on your project management journey.
The Six Elements of a Project Report
There are six elements to project reporting, as the execution phase progresses. It’s important to report on project progress so the schedule doesn’t go astray. Comprehensive project reports include six elements:
Start with the basics. What is the project’s name? Who will be managing the project? What are the available resources? Effective time, cost and task tracking requires detailed information. It’s an unsafe bet to assume stakeholders share your familiarity with the project. Instead, provide information you know they will need, even if it seems like overkill. This helps things run smoothly, and also sets groundwork for the project to be referenced as a precedent when future projects are being planned.
Report dates are the most important project status information, and should always be front-and-centre. Also, data separating status reports from other reports crossing stakeholders’ desks should be visible to grab attention.
Milestones are major touch points for your project. They play an essential role when it comes to time tracking because they serve as a guidepost for remaining work, and the timeline for it to get done. Conducting a milestone review lets stakeholders see actual progress versus what was estimated in the project proposal.
The project summary includes a projected completion date, as well as resources and costs expended. Inclusion of issues causing delays is an important summary component. There should be a clear explanation of how these issues could affect budget and timeline, and work being done to ensure things are corrected to get the project back on track.
This section is straightforward. List issues and risks you have encountered. Note how these are being resolved. Finally, outline how resolutions are positively impacting project execution. Risk assessment and risk management processes must be implemented throughout the project life cycle.
Back up statements with hard numbers and data points. Project planning details should have outlined these metrics. Show how data illustrates the success of your project to date, or, highlight needs for immediate improvement. Determining metrics to measure project progress is essential for tracking tasks, time, costs and managing teams.
With these elements in mind, there are some project reporting best practices to consider:
• Communication is the cornerstone: Status reports are a key element of your communications plan. However, these reports don’t have to cover everything, and be all things to all people. Writing reports in a way that delivers the right information to the right people, at the right time, should be the overarching goal. Weekly status reports are the most common to keep track of project progress.
• Be consistent: Consistency is key, find a format and distribution method that works for your stakeholders, and stick with it. They’ll appreciate the predictability of the information they receive.
• Set targets and measure against them: Establishing metrics is an important part of project reporting and monitoring. Accordingly, these metrics should be how your project progress is measured against goals throughout its life-cycle.
• Keep things simple: Keep reports simple to ensure effectiveness. Don’t pull in details unrelated to the issue on which you’re reporting.
• Always verify what you’re reporting: It’s a bad idea to assume information is correct without doing due diligence to ensure it is.
• Have some standards: Reporting simplification is made easier through creation of standards defining report structure, and how information is presented. Given this, building templates to make the work easier is a great first step.
Throughout any project, it’s important to evaluate reporting to avoid scope creep. As project teams start to work, and silos of activity develop, it’s vital to keep everyone aligned. This ensures project scope doesn’t creep.
Defining the project scope and keeping track of it must be a priority for every project manager. There are five ways to avoid scope creep:
1. Document all project requirements.
2. Establish change control processes: If scope creep happens, it’s important to have change control processes in place to bring things back on track.
3. Create a clear project schedule: A thorough project schedule outlines project goals. It outlines tasks to be done to reach those goals. This schedule is referenced against the project plan’s requirements document to make sure everything is moving forward. If not, the schedule sets the course for tweaks or changes.
4. Verify scope with stakeholders: It’s worthwhile during a project’s lifecycle to review scope with all stakeholders. Reviewing the schedule together and making sure all tasks stakeholders are expecting to be done on a given timeline is also a good idea.
5. Engage the project team: Make sure your project team is happy with how things are going throughout the project. As the change control process starts to take hold, let the team know how it will affect them. Weekly 1:1 meetings or team meetings to review tasks, and also overall project progress is a great way to keep your team engaged.
Project reporting can be challenging, but it doesn’t have to be overwhelming. Taking things step-by-step can help ease anxieties among everyone involved, and ensure a winning result. Make sure you use project management software, or at least a project tracking template, to facilitate the creation of reports. Let us know which tools you use when reporting on your projects, we would like to hear from you. All the very best on your project management journey.
Tracking Projects
Project tracking is an essential part of staying on schedule and within budget. Without it, you cannot keep an eye on progress and create accurate reports. It is a project management method used to track the progress of tasks in a project. By tracking your project, you can compare actual to planned progress, and identify issues that may prevent the project from staying on schedule and within budget.
Project tracking helps project managers and stakeholders know what work has been done, the resources that have been used to execute those tasks, and help them create an earned value analysis by measuring project variance and tracking milestones.
A project tracker is a tool that lets managers measure the progress of their team as they execute tasks and use resources. It’s an essential tool to keeping projects on schedule and within their budgets.
Tracking the progress of your project can seem like a daunting task, but by laying out the process and planning ahead, you can set yourself up for success. The following are a few things you can do now to get on track:
- Start with a project outline
- Create deliverables and milestones
- Set realistic, clear and measurable goals
- Use a project tracker template or a project tracking software to keep track of time, costs and tasks
- Meet regularly with team and stakeholders
- Have clear deadlines
- Support transparency
These suggestions are structural and should be set up for every project. Additionally, with project tracking, it’s important to remember the triple constraint (time, cost and scope). The key to managing these interrelated variables is proper estimation and control. You first estimate your costs to create a project budget, the time that tasks will take to create a project timeline and the project scope to create your project schedule. Then you have to control them during the execution phase by using a project tracker that allows you to track time, costs and tasks.
Many types of project reports are created during the execution phase in order to track the progress of a project. Project status reports act not only as an important communication tool during project execution but also as important historical documents that inform the development of future projects. This makes estimating the scope of future projects less of a shot-in-the-dark, and more of an educated guess.
Project status reports have a few key objectives, including:
- Making communication across the organization seamless
- Simplifying the communication process
- Keeping stakeholders in-the-know as the project moves forward
- Delivering the right information, to the right stakeholders, at the right time
- Enhancing organizational support for everyone involved
Project monitoring, tracking and reporting are a highly-collaborative process. Without monitoring and tracking the progress of a project, the reporting is not accurate. Therefore, teams must collaborate when creating reports, so communications are clear. This collaboration and communication is facilitated by the right project management tools. Project tracking software helps with critical project management areas and processes such as task management, time tracking, and resource management.
So, how do you track your projects? Using a real-time dashboard is one great way to see data about tasks, costs and more in a customizable view. Let us know your approach, we would like to hear from you. Our next blog will look into The Six Elements of a Project Report which is a carry on from this blog, all the very best on your project management journey.
Minimizing Risk in Outsourced Projects
In our series of risk management, the focus has been on internal project risk, their identification and mitigation. However, when accounting for risk, there must be an understanding on outsourced risk, the process of contracting a third party to do work on behalf of a client that has neither the skills nor resources to perform in-house. It is usually more cost-effective to contract out work than hire someone to complete the project in question.
The other benefits include being able to perform several parts of the project in parallel, thus reducing time to market. Taking advantage of geographic differences in the cost of implementation in IT projects can also help bring costs down; outsourcing development to countries such as India and those in Eastern Europe, for example, is a common practice.
The benefits do, however, come with some pitfalls. Chiefly among them is the lack of control experienced when outsourcing and care must be taken to ensure that the gains in cost and time are not lost in over-managing the outsourcing process.
Involving third parties as brokers in these situations can alleviate this risk. In essence, the project management is outsourced to a middle-tier service provider capable of marshaling the best capabilities of the open market.
The riskiest path to take is that of total outsourcing, placing the project entirely in the hands of a third party. This may be because the project is so labor intensive or technical that the client cannot service any parts of the project themselves.
Thus, trust is placed in the experts to produce something, which would not otherwise be possible. With that trust, the additional burden of risk management. The danger is always there that the lack of control will lead to project overruns and higher costs than anticipated.
Since the project is outside the client’s expertise, they can often neither control nor verify that the lack of control is a natural phenomenon. This is compounded by the fact that the contractor could effectively blind the client with the science of the service that they are offering.
In IT projects, this is one of the key risks involved in outsourcing.
How do we combat the risks associated with total outsourcing? Outsourced projects should stay within the available competence, which sounds obvious, but really is not. Given that the reason for outsourcing is that the project cannot be achieved in-house, the logical conclusion is that it must lie outside available competence.
The paradox is easily solved; hire staff with equivalent or related competencies. This avoids all the issues associated with total outsourcing but can prove as expensive as having the project performed in-house.
The alternative is to find a project management team with technical and non-technical skills. If the project to be outsourced is a single project within a portfolio of business activity, then it follows that hiring permanent staff to perform this function is probably going to be out of the budgetary scope of the company.
This is where Co-Sourcing comes into play. It is essentially two-tier outsourcing, using the third party as a buffer between the highly technical project staff and the (usually) less technically competent client.
The key is in minimizing the number of project firsts. The most significant risk is when the client is outsourcing for the first time a new project with a technology they have never used before. Co-Sourcing reduces three project firsts to one.
Co-Source provides a single interface to many competencies, enabling an approach that can fulfill the entire project lifecycle. Even if some aspects were not designed to be outsourced, clients can often find that the Co-Source model allows them to find economies of scale within the projects as they unfold.
It is a win-win-win situation; the client enjoys superior service while making a significant cost saving. The contractor saves time by communicating with a technically minded project management team, and Co-Source can continue building on a solid base of experience. Let us know your thoughts on outsourcing the project; we would like to hear from you. All the very best on your project management journey.
Risk Management Tools & Techniques for PM’s
Risk is inherent in project management and so is the need to create a risk management plan to control it. That methodology is called risk management, which is as important as planning to making sure a project comes in on time, within budget and of quality.
The following some of the risk management tools which can be used during a project;
1. Root Cause Analysis
The root cause is another way to say the essence of something. Therefore, root cause analysis is a systematic process used to identify the fundamental risks that are embedded in the project. This is a tool that says good management is not only responsive but preventative.
Often root cause analysis is used after a problem has already come up. It seeks to address causes rather than symptoms. But it can be applied to assessing risk by going through the goals of any root cause analysis, which ask: What happened? How did it happen? Why did it happen? Once those questions are addressed, develop a plan of action to prevent it from happening again.
2. SWOT
SWOT, short for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats, is another tool to help with identifying risks. To apply this tool, go through the acronym.
Begin with strengths and determine what those are as related to the project. Next, list the weaknesses or things that could be improved or are missing from the project. This is where the likelihood of negative risk will raise its head, while positive risk comes from the identification of strengths. Opportunities are another way of referring to positive risks and threats are negative risks.
When collecting SWOT, illustrate your findings in a four-square grid. The top of the square has strengths to the left and weaknesses to the right. Below that is opportunities to the left and threats to the right. The left-hand side is helpful to achieving the objective of the project and those on the right-hand side are harmful to achieving the objective of the project. This allows for analysis and cross-reference.
3. Risk Assessment Template for IT
While this tool was developed for IT projects, it can be expanded to speak to any project. What a IT risk assessment template offers is a numbered listing of the risks, to keep them in order. It provides a space in which to collect the risks of a project, which is also helpful when executing the project and tracking any risks that become reality.
One of the aspects of the risk assessment template for IT is that the spreadsheet has a built-in calculator that figures out the likelihood of a risk in fact occurring and then multiples that against the impact it would have on the project or the organization. This way, a project manager knows the potential harm of the risk and so can prioritize their response to it if or when the risk happens.
4. Risk Register
Similar to the risk assessment template for IT is a risk register. Basically, what a risk register does is identify and describe the list. It then will provide space to explain the potential impact on the project and what the planned response is for dealing with the risk, if it occurs. Furthermore, the risk register allows a project manager to prioritize the risk, assign an owner responsible for resolving it and gives a place to add notes as needed.
The risk register is a strategic tool to control risk in a project. It works to gather the data on what risks the team expects and then a way to respond proactively if they do show up in the project. It has already mapped out a path forward to keep the project from falling behind schedule or going over budget. Pick up a free risk register template here.
5. Probability and Impact Matrix
Another tool for project managers is the probability and impact matrix. It helps prioritize risk, which is important, as you don’t want to waste time chasing a small risk and exhaust your resources. This technique combines the probability and impact scores of individual risks and then ranks them in terms of their severity. This way each risk is understood in context to the larger project, so if one does occur, there’s a plan in place to respond or not.
6. Risk Data Quality Assessment
With a risk data quality assessment technique, project managers use data that has been collated for the risks they’ve identified. This is used to then find the level to which information about the risk is relevant to the project manager. It helps the project manager understand the accuracy, reliability, quality and integrity of the risk as related to the collected data about it.
For each risk listed, the risk data quality assessment requires that the project manager determine the extent of the understanding of the risk, collect what data is available, what the quality and reliability is for that data and its integrity. It is only by examining these parameters of the risk can an accurate assessment be reached.
7. Brainstorming
To begin the brainstorming process, you must assess the risks that could impact your project. This starts with reviewing the project documentation, looking over historic data and lessons learned from similar projects, reading over articles and organizational process assets. Anything that can provide insight into issues that might occur during the execution of the project. Once you’ve done your research, start brainstorming with anyone who might have insight.
The better a project manager identifies and responds to risk, the better the outcome. That’s why there are never enough risk management tools and techniques to have at your disposal when planning for a project. Let us know your thoughts and which risk management tools you use when delivering your project, we would like to hear from you. All the best on your project management journey.
Streamlining Communication between Remote Teams
Whether trying for executive buy-in or conveying regular updates to stakeholders, managing teams, and communication plays a critical role in every facet of the business landscape. It helps convey the requisite information at the right time, facilitates the exchange of innovative ideas, strengthens team bonding and collaboration, and improves work efficiency.
However, ensuring effective communication becomes challenging when the team is dispersed across remote locations. When team members are working in varying time zones and locations, it creates silos, and thus, bringing them on the same page becomes cumbersome for a project manager.
These communication barriers can lead to loss of trust and transparency over time and negatively impact the project’s progress. Therefore, it is vital for a project manager to walk the extra mile and take suitable initiatives to enhance remote team communication.
This can be achieved by defining clear roles and responsibilities which help every remote team member understand what is expected of them and align their efforts with the project’s end goals. However, while conveying key responsibility areas (KRAs) in person is easy in a typical in-office work setup, remote work settings make it more arduous. Nevertheless, by using the right tools, the project manager can convey KRAs to remote teammates effectively.
For example, they can use a video conferencing tool for one-on-one meetings or send an email to explain the responsibilities to individuals. Moreover, an initiation meeting at the start of every project can also help the team members get to know each other better. Additionally, the project manager can elaborate on inter-dependencies. It will enable the team to comprehend each other’s responsibilities, communicate and collaborate effectively, and synchronize their efforts better to achieve milestones.
As communication is predominantly online, formulating new policies to streamline asynchronous and synchronous means is the need of the hour. Standardized rules help avoid communication gaps or discrepancies and facilitate fast information exchange. To begin with, the project manager can decide on the communication channels to use for various purposes. For instance, synchronous channels such as Zoom, Google Meet, etc., can be suitable for scrum meetings, brainstorming sessions, training, etc.
On the other hand, asynchronous channels like emails, Slack, etc., can be better for instant messaging, casual communication, file sharing, etc. Besides that, setting protocols for away messages, one-on-one meetings with teammates, breaks, etc., can also help save time and regulate communication.
One of the ways to combat this challenge is to organize daily stand-up meetings. Considering everyone’s schedule and availability, managers can fix a time to ensure no one is left out.
Along with updating the progress, team members can mention the roadblocks, if any, and brainstorm on viable solutions. If issues are significant, scheduling separate meetings can be a good option to discuss them. Further, urgent meetings to communicate unprecedented changes or risks can also boost communication and coordination.
Communication is not confined to messages or video calls but goes beyond that. Equipping virtual teams with the right tech inventory is essential for a remote team to enhance it further. So, besides providing a video conferencing tool or messaging app, a project manager can also leverage various project management, workflow automation, and visual collaboration apps. It not only helps convey and visualize the critical updates in real-time but also centralizes them, thereby minimizing any discrepancies.
A resource management tool can also prove beneficial as it provides enterprise-wide visibility of resources. They can view resources schedules, their utilization, productivity, and even project schedules on one platform. For example, they can see an individual’s forecast-vs-actual time report and note any variance in the time predicted to complete a task and the actual time ten. Further, they can conduct a one-on-one meeting and understand and resolve the cause accordingly.
Virtual team-building sessions play a pivotal role in strengthening communication and collaboration. They replicate those water-cooler conversations and casual cubicle meet-ups in the physical office settings and help get rid of the monotony and isolation that set in while working virtually. Further, as different team members participate and interact more, they get to know each other better, which breaks down the silos of communication. All this paves the way for stronger team bonding, transparent communication, and cohesive work.
To make every session more inclusive and productive, the organizer should consider every participant’s preference and customize activities accordingly. This will pique everyone’s interest and elevate engagement.
Effective communication is the bread and butter of remote team management. It facilitates team collaboration, ensures the alignment of efforts with final goals, and eventually boosts productivity.
The aforementioned tips will help you build a powerful communication strategy and build synergy between team members. Since remote work is the new normal, it is high time you took the right measures to improve communication within your dispersed team and seal every project’s success. Let us know how you manage communication between remote team. All the very best on your project management journey.
