Stakeholder engagement is one of the most important factors in the successful delivery of projects. What role should and shouldn't the PMO take in promoting good stakeholder engagement practices.
9. 1 What should a PMO:
• Do?
• Not do?
• Not sure?
2 What are you doing ?
Need to do more of?
10. PMO as a broker
Senior
management
Projects
PMO facilitation
Alignment
Translation
Negotiation
Coordination
• Tools
• Systems
• Documents
• Project methods
• Knowledge sharing forums
• Formal training
• PM appointment
• Status reporting
• Governance
• Lessons learned practices
• Personal experience
Retrospective learning Prospective learning
PMO brokering
Adapted from: Julian, J., 2008.
11. “The involved and
the affected...” Ulrich 1983
“An individual, group or
organization who may affect,
be affected by, or perceive
itself to be affected by a
decision, activity or outcome
of the project” PMBoK 5 2013
Who is a
stakeholder?
17. Source:
Reggie Springleer, Manager:
Industry Transition,
City of Cape Town
Implementation is accepted
Supported by taxi people
Adapt & enable
people and
processes to
match
stakeholder &
project types
21. If stakeholders
matter – then their
engagement must
affect the projects
running in your
organisation
1 Promote a stakeholder
mindset
2 Adapt & enable people and
processes to match
stakeholder & project
types
3 Monitor the engagement
22. Stories borrowed from…
• Reggie Springleer, Manager Industry Transition, City of Cape Town
And many, many others…
Bourne, L., and D.H.T. Walker. 2005. “Visualising and mapping
stakeholder influence.” Management Decision 43(5): 649–60.
Jones, T. 2015. “Ready to refuel.” PMI Network 29(11): 36–43.
Julian, J., 2008. How project management office leaders facilitate
cross‐project learning and continuous improvement. Project
Management Journal, 39(3), pp.43-58.
OGC, 2008. Portfolio, Programme and Project Offices, TSO
Pemsel, S. and Wiewiora, A., 2013. Project management office a
knowledge broker in project-based organisations. International
Journal of Project Management, 31(1), pp.31-42.
Worsley, LM. (2016): Stakeholder-led project management, Changing
the way we manage projects, Business Expert Press
Sitting behind each of the facets is a management system. Its important the right one is in the right place – everyone here is aware of the problems that arise when strategising is done within the portfolio – or even worse in the mobilisation meta-processes – where deliberate strategy transforms itself into an emergent strategy that no-one has validated except perhaps the IT director or Customer Services!
But even when it is done by the right people in the right way there reamins the problem of implementation – getting what you want done…
Ask the audience who their SHs are…
Role-based – people and groups who have a a defined relationship to the project – if you like the ‘involved’
Agenda-based – These people and groups may feely very strongly (passionately) about the project but you won’t necessarily identify them by going to your governance docs. They may be obvious – they may not. They may emerge late on in the project – if you like the affected. The way you identify, assess and engage with these groups is often quite different.
The second way to aid the identification and analysis of SHs is to get an understanding of the nature of your project from a SH perspective. Many of you probably already describe projects by etc.
Stakeholder neutral project – in these projects relatively few SHs and your focus is primarily on role based SHs. Things like small training projects, software updates affecting few people , department office move
Stakeholder- sensitive – now SHs are in the 10s and 100s. Lots of role-based to consult with and gain agreement from but also likely to includes – the affected – agenda-based SHs
Stakeholder-led – now the agenda-based SHs are so powerful. This is a game changer – now you have to work with these SHs. Metaphor of the military.
So the types of SHs (role based and agenda-based) and the nature of your project start to help us understand who and why we are engaging with our SHs.
Chevron case – PMI network – project of the year 2015 – describe and then position as marketing
Back in 2009, the aging of the refinery’s coke drums began jeopardizing Chevron’s ability to meet the region’s fuel demands. Some of the industry’s oldest, the drums, which heat crude oil up to 920 degrees Fahrenheit (493 Celsius), had been in use since 1968. Cracks were upending the refinery’s operations, and the organization knew it was time to go beyond stopgap repairs. The drums were “very unreliable, and they were impacting refinery economics,” says Greg Roos, PMP, the project’s engineering manager.
“None of us were enthusiastic about dragging the drums across 22 miles [35 kilometers] of Los Angeles over the course of four nights. We knew we had to do better.”
To ensure there were no surprises on the night of the big move, the project team rolled out a public outreach campaign. Newsletters and media reports pushed people to a website that shared information about the project. But the team wanted to make sure every home got the message. So it also canvassed in individual neighborhoods, particularly those along the coke drum route, going door-to-door to pass out fliers and speak directly to residents about the project.
“People remember a face-to-face encounter usually much more clearly than they can recall something they read or something they’ve seen.”
Lessons learned from similar moves also helped pave the road for the project team. For instance, Mr. Roos volunteered to help with crowd control when a space shuttle was transported through Los Angeles to the local science museum in 2012. He watched how the police and project staff worked together to protect both people and the shuttle—and how much the crowd seemed to enjoy the show. The Chevron team even hired some of the same contractors so it could benefit from their expertise.
Careful planning and execution turned what could have been a high-risk situation into an opportunity to build stakeholder support. Intrigued by the unusual event in their neighborhood, some residents stood along closed roads to watch the drums pass by.
“We turned it into a really positive experience. It really does become a parade. These giant things that are fully lit up at night, it looks pretty cool.”
Actually the purpose of the communication is incredibly important and must impact upon the approach we take in out projects.