In this unit, we discuss the importance of stakeholder buy-in when initiating a project. If you have been involved with a project, reflect on the level of stockholder interest in the project, and their involvement, and how this affected the project. You may also find examples of projects using the library resources, and discuss an example of a project failure or success that can be attributed to stakeholder involvement in a project.
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My family lives in Bucks County, PA and for the past few years there had been talks of extending Woodhaven Rd. (which is a way to get to 1-95) so that traffic can be decreased on the current road that is used to get onto I-95. The project seemed ready to go but after some questioning from stakeholders (primarily community members) the project was put on hold. Members of Bucks county did not want this project to continue because it would increase the traffic on some quieter streets in the county, causing disruption and inconvenience to local citizens. Because so many stakeholders were against the project happening even though it could potentially bring economic benefits to the county, it did not go through. The stakeholders made an impact on the outcome of the project–in this case causing it to end before it even started.
Hi Ami,
Your experience shows a great example of how stakeholder needs drives benefit realization. While the project had its clear economic benefits, these set of stakeholders (the community members) had a different outlook of the value it would create for the community. This goes to show t is important to consider the needs of all stakeholders involved. when undertaking a project.
Hi Ami,
I like your example which is simple but clear. Stakeholders do play a role in a project, and how to get stakeholders agree on a project implementation is not that easy since stakeholders and project team have different views and considerations.
Great example Ami.
This brings to mind a recent happening in New York, A mall was opened at Bay Plaza about three years ago on one side of interstate 95. The mall has over 54 stores including Macy’s, JCPenney, Staples, Kmart, Saks Fifth Avenue (formerly Barnes & Noble), Old Navy etc, it has a multiplex movie theater, several restaurants, a fitness club, and some office space; The Bay Plaza Shopping Center is one of the largest shopping centers in New York City
On the opposite side of Interstate 95, across the street from a smaller shopping center — there were plans in 2017 to build a new retail complex that will be called Baychester Square. A two-story, $200 million, 350,000 square-foot development. It will have at least 40 stores, 1,200 free parking spaces and lots of open space.
Stakeholders (People) living in the area were vehemently opposed to the idea of another shopping mall, when there was already a big shopping mall right across the interstate 95. The people would rather have housing projects etc, anything but another major mall/outlet. Borough President Ruben Diaz Jr added two required modifications to the project: a deed restriction to keep the project from being developed as an outlet mall, and the creation of additional MTA bus routes for the complex and proposed senior living center that would not adversely impact bus service to nearby Bay Plaza and Co-op City
Thank you for sharing your experience. You are right, when the project related to traffic, civil Engineering, and other large-scale construction. The communication with the stakeholders (residents) becomes one of the decisive factor of the project.
Thank you for your sharing. Although in many times the project related to traffic, especially about the road laying, the project can bring a lot of benefits to the local stakeholders. However, the project also influences these stakeholders’ normal living environment or brings them extra to do. Many local stakeholders are disagree with the project. Thus, the communication with the local stakeholders become very significant.
Thank you for sharing a good example to us. Your stakeholders matter, and managing stakeholders effectively can make all the difference to the success of your project.
You provide a good example about how stakeholders play significant impact the processes of the project and determine whether the project to continue. Making sure proper stakeholders involvement would be important for a successful project.
Thanks for your good example. It is important to put stakeholders’ requirements as priority in a project. The local residents are important stakeholders in this project. They did not want the traffic to be impacted by the project. The project managers sould consider this as a factor to design the project process.
Hi Ami,
I lived in Bucks County for 3-years, I can truly understand what you were saying. The York Rd (263) had been fixed for almost 3 years, I was told by my aunt because this area is in the middle of two governments, they both didn’t want to responsible for the road construction funds. It was a two-lane road in both directions, and the limit speed was 55 mph. The road was decreased to one-way in both directions and the limit speed was 35 or 40 mpg I couldn’t remember.
Hi Ami
This is really a great example. Usually stakeholders are all see the projects from their own sides. A project could be reasonable for one stakeholder, but totally does not make sense for another one. This is why sometimes people feel like it could be a good thing to do it but why the other people do not like it and make it failed.
Ami,
This is a great example of how stakeholders can drive the progress and outcome of a project without buy-in. In my post today, I shared an example that was similar in some regards. After considering both of our sets of experiences, it also brings to mind that if communication could be enhanced in situations such as these – in your example, possibly through holding a public forum – in my example, possibly having a round-table discussion – projects may have different results in many cases due to the ability to consider multiple perspectives. It seems that it is never an ideal situation when a project closes down prematurely based on situations such as the ones we’ve highlighted respectively.
Thank you for your story. I think government projects are much more sensitive to the mood of stakeholders. As such, they are far more interesting to analyze how to go about winning over stakeholders. Identifying the often conflicting interest of the stakeholders and find possible solutions can make it much easier to do so in a business setting.
Hi Ami,
This is a great example of the stockholder interest in the project, and how their involvement affects the project. I use to live at Red Lion and the Blvd. so I am very familiar with the location you described. They have been going back and forth for years about the reconstruction of Woodhaven Rd. and I never understood why. I can’t remember if that is Byberry Rd or not, but that street is always congested. They started re-configuring the Blvd, but you can see where the progress just stopped. SMH. Nevertheless, this is a great example of how stakeholders buy-in can benefit a project or make it fail.
This is a good example similar to the one I gave, showing that what is good for the stakeholders would never be assumed, but should be based on data collected from these stakeholders. Jut because a project will apparently benefit the greater good, or be positive in term of bigger picture, does not mean that it is necessarily what the people want. Moat project s will also involve some negative aspects that are worth taking into consideration, and what better way to do that that to collect information directly from the people affected by this project, the direct stakeholders. Great example. Thank you for sharing
Hi, Ami, thank you for sharing this great example demonstrating the importance of stakeholders buy-in for a project. A project would not succeed If it failed to thoroughly consider relevant stakeholders and maximizing interests for them.
The overall good of the county, but a hand of individuals decides against the county.
Good example Ami, clear manifestation of how stakeholders influence, interest, and action can impact a project.
They have seen the economic analysis, ease of traffic on the overall, yet disagree for implementation.
How important is stakeholders buy-in.
In my former position as a project analyst I often worked on IT sourcing engagements for a hospital management company. Before we could work to develop a “to be” solution for the individual sites we first had to understand the “as is” state. This required a lot of legwork on our end, however, it was ultimately up to the local stakeholders (i.e. IT manager or director) to provide us with access to the inventory data and to sign off and confirm that the full inventory developed was accurate. These sourcing initiatives were often requested from corporate in an effort to reduce the organization’s expenses and increase optimization. So while there was high engagement from the corporate stakeholders, the local stakeholders were often uninterested and annoyed by our requests as it required additional work from them, aside from their day to day tasks. This lack of interest drastically delayed our timelines and slowed the development of the “to be” state. There was a drastic difference in the average timelines for the initiatives with no stakeholder buy in compared to those initiatives were we had buy-in at the local level and where the expectation was set upfront by corporate on the involvement required. It became such an issue that we eventually had to revise our contract with the organization to set provisions on how timeline delays would be accounted for. In these cases the local stakeholder’s involvement determined whether an initiative would even proceed or be put on hold indefinitely.
Hi Iyana,
Thank you for using your own experience as example to illustrate the impact from stakeholders. I like your post and example you mentioned, which reminds me that stakeholders may not just stop a project, the influence the stakeholder brings is diverse, it may delay the timeline and make project team spend more time and costs. But vice versa, I think if stakeholders are willing to cooperate, they will be helpful in a project.
Thank you for sharing your own experience. Based on your words, can I said that that companies need to include an estimate of the engagement of local stakeholders when designing a project plan. And we should balance the engagement of both local stakeholders and stakeholders from companies.
Good example. How to balance stakeholders’ requirements and strengthen their confidence in the project would be important courses for a project manager.
Thanks for your good explanation and example. Stakeholders are important for a project. As you mentioned. They affect the timeline of the project. To make the process more efficient, people should make the project meet the requirements of the stakeholders.
This sounds like a textbook case of IT projects in the healthcare industry. I hope you share your experience in class in the future and how you plan to incorporate lessons we learn to real-world problem-solving.
Hi Iyana,
Thanks for sharing your field experience.
A key take away from the report is that lack of interest in a project delays timeline and slows the development of the “to be” state. So, IT Project Managers should always work to have their project proposal(s) accepted at the local level and supported by stakeholders.
To fulfill requirements of stakeholders and ensure consensus among stakeholders would be significant elements for a successful project. One project failure I found is LAMP-H project, which was initiated by the U.S. Army to acquire crafts with amphibian and heavy-lifting capabilities. At the beginning of the project, there were the great diversity of opinion and disagreements on this project from various project stakeholders as to technical requirements, acquisition strategy, funding source, costs and etc. The project manager immediately realized a requirements analysis was needed and initiated a requirement analysis with an independent systems analysis organization. By using positive results from the requirements analysis, the project manager built consensus among the various stakeholder. However, after the project had been verified as viable, the PEO structure was established. The PEOs were placed in charge of all programs with quite different background and without any understanding of acquisition process. The PEOs tried to forge the consensus among the stakeholders and ignored the recommendations of the project manager as to the new approaches used in the project, which led to internal conflicts and disharmony among various stakeholders. Many conflicts cannot be solved in time combined with program delays and over-budget costs, the project ultimately failed. From the case, stakeholders play important roles in the project who can impact the funding and technical support, the effectiveness of the procedures, and other significant positive or negative impact on the output of the project. It’s important for project managers to understand the importance of an effective stakeholder management in a project, and take care of stakeholders interests and requirements from the initiation stage of the projects.
https://www.pmi.org/learning/library/project-stakeholder-management-failures-lessons-learned-5544
Thank your for your example. From your example, we can know that in many times, there are many groups of stakeholders, their different ideas and value concept or the points they put attention are all different. I go through the article, I found that senior financial executives are constantly seeking to re-allocate the funds that have been justified by a project manager for his or her program. However, functional managers are project stakeholders who are solicitous of protecting their vested interests.
Thank you for sharing a good example to us. For your example, I learn that identify the roles of the stakeholders in the project is important. All stakeholders are involved in the development of projects and not just direct beneficiaries of an initiative.
Thanks for your example. Project manager should consider all stakeholders as important roles in his or her project. Stockholders’ profits should be priority in their perspective. However, it is impossible to maximize the profit by ignoring other stakeholders’ needs.
Good example, jing jiang . Stakeholders are the people who need to provide key input to the critical decisions made in the project. Failure to engage stakeholders effectively is the fast-path to disaster.
Nice example. The analysis of your example provides us with a golden opportunity to identify valuable project management lessons. The lessons learned from your example can be used to help project managers enhance their likelihood of successfully managing a project. Effective communication skills are indispensable skills for a project manager to possess.
That was a good example. Your example shows that there are different types of stakeholders who have different interests. I read the article and It strengthens my understanding of the role a stakeholders has in the project, and their profits should be kept in mind while completing this project. Their input is critical for the success of the project.
It is important to consider about the stakeholders’ requirements and thoughts. Any disagreement with the stakeholders’ ideas can give the project a lot of unnecessary troubles. My dad and his colleagues contracted a project that will build a large supermarket. Because of many issues like underground parking and setting pipelines, so workers need to dig down. However, the project is close to the residential area. As stakeholders， the community residents come forward to stop the project because of the noise and dust. Under the project principal’s communication, the project continued, but the project organizer need to give residents a certain amount of compensation. From this event, we can see that the stakeholders’ requirements and thoughts can make huge affect to the project. It not only delayed the progress of the project, but also may cause unnecessary losses.
I agree with you, it is important to consider stakeholders’ requirements. Like you said, the supermarket impacts stakeholders, so the project sponsors should figure out another method to make the project keep going.
Hanqing, thank you for sharing a good example
Consensus building among stakeholders is hard part in a project. All stakeholders’ interests should be take into account and making all the stakeholders come to a unanimous agreement is important. Additionally, conflicts should be solved in time to reduce adverse impact on the process of the project.
Thank you for your example. This is a good point. Sometimes some stakeholders are standing in different angles to see a project, and this absolutely would make “unnecessary losses.”
yes, good example. Communication is perhaps the most visible manifestation of culture. Project managers encounter cultural differences in communication in language, context, and candor. Language is clearly the greatest barrier to communication. When project stakeholders do not share the same language, communication slows down and is often filtered to share only information that is deemed critical. The barrier to communication can influence project execution where quick and accurate exchange of ideas and information is critical.
This is a great example. I feel that in cases such as these, where an entire community can be considered direct stakeholders, the outcome would be much smoother if the project manager could consider setting expectations of the larger group of shareholders prior to the project breaking ground. This way, if community members had been advised that dust and noise would last an approximate amount of time, the majority may have decided that they could endure any inconvenience in exchange for the community-wide benefits of the final result of the project.
HI,
I think this is a great example of why stakeholders need to be on board and communicating with them is key to having a successful project. If they are not kept in the picture, problems like this will arise and cause delays and losses to the project.
Great example. Your example explained the importance of communication with stakeholders. Therefore, the use of effective communication skills, project managers will be more likely to reconcile stakeholder conflicts earlier in the process so as to minimize the chance of project failure.
Hangqing, I can’t agree with you more on the importance of the stakeholders’ requirements and thoughts. And the conflicts among stakeholders is indeed an issue causing lots of troubles.
Well said, Hanqing! It is important that stakeholders are on board with the project’s ideas and mission. Their disagreement will result many challenges in the project. Also, great example to support your argument.
I read an article about a Spanish financial institution la Caixa that was rolling out contactless payments. This technology was supposed to enable customers to just “wave their card or smartphone near a point of sale (POS) or ATM to make a purchase or withdrawal.” The key stakeholders were the customers who will be making the transactions. They first had to believe the technology was secure enough before they could use it. The other stakeholders were the merchants and retailers who also had to accept this new initiative.
The bank went ahead and gave phones and credit cards that had contactless chips and installed payment chips in retail stores as a pilot of the project. The project was successful because there was communication and continuous training provided to the stakeholders. They were shown how to use the technology, benefits and what security measures were in place. They also introduced rewards programs to encourage customers to use it. la Caixa got stakeholder engaged and got feedback through surveys.
Fretty, P. (2012). Banking on technology. PM Network, 26(6), 50–55.
Thank you for your example, Karabo. Many people tend to be mildly hostile to new things, thus, let customers accept new things become a very crucial part of the project. This bank’s project manager is smart that make a show to the users about how security level of the new tech have and make a rewards programs to the users.
Good example, Karabo. From your example, providing good communication, user training and proper incentives would be good ways to attract interests from stakeholders and strengthen relationships with them.
Good example. This is really good for me to understand how to make stakeholders to understand why they need a project and what the project would bring to them. If an organization can match their needs to the stakeholders’ needs, then the project would be succeeded easily.
That was a great idea Carabo, like Hanqing said, people are hostile to new things, I know a lot of people-especially the middle aged and the elderly – that would still rather go into the bank to withdraw money than use ATM’s (or even worse-do internet banking transactions).
It was smart he bank the gave phones and credit cards that had contactless chips and installed payment chips in retail stores as a pilot of the project, as opposed to selling the phones – even at a reduced price. communication and continuous training provided to the stakeholders was also an added advantage as well
This is a great example! I think whenever a new technology is being introduced it is scary for comsumers and businesses alike to trust it. That being said, in this situation it was important that both of these stakeholders remained on board so that the project can be executed to its full potential.
Karabo,
This is a great example of stakeholder buy-in and the impact they have on the system. New technology is always hard to gain buy-in on. The fact the financial institution was able to demonstrate their product this way was allowed them to gain the stakeholder’s (user) approval. Stakeholders sometimes have more of an interest something then the project coordinators.
Hi Karabo,
Thanks for sharing this article on banking. From your post, I noticed that although it is crucial to get stakeholders involved in all projects, the level of importance varies in various projects. In your case, since the stakeholders are also the customers if their needs and wants are not taken into consideration in implementing the project the failure of the project will be inevitable. However, this might not be the case for a project for a project that is set to improve building infrastructure. Great post!
Hi
That is a really interesting example. Thanks you for sharing this article. I took a look at it. However like derrick I also believe that although it is important to get stakeholders involved in a project, the importance depends on the project. In your case, this was something that customers wanted and so they contributed greatly to the project. In the example I gave in my post, even though the project outcome would benefit the firm, the needs of the employees who are the stakeholders were not taken into consideration, resulting in the project being shut down.
Interesting example, and I’d wonder how the security was handled. Whether security is indeed sufficient, customers need to be reassured and provided evidence to prove the safety of the system. It sounds like that happened here through their training on the new system, so we might safely assume they created a module with simple explanations to address security concerns for the widest segment of their customer base.
Before embarking on a project, the business objective must be determined, and this is mostly done with a lot of input from the Business owner and Senior Management (Major stakeholders) as both go hand in hand. A project cannot succeed without the both parties, a new process or product will not succeed if it is introduced to a firm by a project management team/IT department without the buy-in from the Business owner and senior management.
some years back, I worked at the banking industry, the IT department bought an application meant to be used for reconciliation, it was purchased with Senior Management’s support and presented to the relevant business units (retail banking, Audit team, reconciliation team etc). However the tool was not accepted by the business units as it did not meet their criteria. Their input was not fully sought and/or condsidered. even though it was concluded (by the IT team and senior management) that this application was needed. In a few months, despite Senior Management’s insistence on using the tool,(and the business unit claiming they would rather do things the way “it was before”) the application was abandoned and the project died before the reality/objective was achieved..
Thank your for your sharing. In many case, when the company what to start a new project, the project manager is usually only consider about the outside stakeholders’ thoughts and feedback, and ignore the inside stakeholders’ voice. Usually, the disagreement comes inside which shows the fundamental defects of the project.
Hi Folake,
You make a great point that buy-in is necessary from both the business owners and senior management. Your example reminds me of the importance of stakeholder management and ensuring that the relevant stakeholders are engaged in all project decisions/activities. These business units could have possibly been more involved with building the application requirements to ensure it did meet the criteria they needed.
In reference to your first paragraph – I completely agree with your assessment. In another reply, I noted that expectations being set up front, and appropriately, can lead to enhanced buy-in across the board. As you said, if Majority stakeholders are able to communicate effectively to all other stakeholders, the fate of a project may be different than if that communication is not carried out effectively.
As I view this week’s discussions, I’m actually reminded of the importance of sales skills to a certain extent amongst majority stakeholders and project managers. An old cliche says “nothing happens in life until a sale is made.” If this is true, communicating vision, purpose, business objective, and overall benefits to all stakeholders is truly important.
Thanks for sharing.
Hi Folake,
I like your example which is clear and straightforward. It shows how involvement of stakeholders would impact whole project. Stakeholders definitely play an important role in the process of project, whether or not gain their support would put the project go totally different way.
This is a great example. It sounds like if there was an expanded analysis of stakeholders then the project sponsor would have seen that stakeholder engagement was key to implementation. Even if the same software was picked having the support of the different business units by giving them respect and a chance to have their voice heard could have achieved better outcome
You described a very real risk in projects, as inadequate buy-in or engagement can ruin things. If a project will benefit the organization (based on economic feasibility or business case), then this outcome is negative for the organization. In such a scenario, staff may be punished and productivity may suffer, so efforts should be made to avoid it.
Hi Folake,
Thanks for sharing with us your field experience.
Yes, for projects to succeed, the IT/Project management team, should always involve key stakeholders like Business Owner(s), Senior Management, and the various departmental heads or business units. Involving the managers of various business units, from the initiation stage, will give them a sense of belonging and ownership of the project, and that will position them as the project ambassadors – increasing awareness and spreading the benefits of the project to members of their team.
The Algeria East-West Highway megaproject’s cost was more than US$ 11.2 billion. It was scheduled for completion in the fourth quarter of 2009, but it was delivered behind schedule by five years. The megaproject has generated over 100,000 jobs for its implementation. The project will cut travel times and provide better and safer access to the north of the country, stimulating economic development. The project idea existed since 1975, but the decision was made in 2005, 40 years later. The project was financed by public funds.
The megaproject is a six-lane toll highway. It is being developed along Algeria’s borders with Morocco and Tunisia with total length of 1,216 km.
Zidane et al. (2015) have evaluated an Algerian highway megaproject based on a holistic evaluation model. The worst score was at the operational level with an efficiency score of two out of six. The tactical level of this megaproject has the highest score, with effectiveness six out of six andrelevance with the same score. The strategic level with impact scored four out of six, and sustainability had a score of five out of six.
What makes the project success?
First, identifying the project’s stakeholders. Stakeholders are anyone impacted. The people within your organization who have a stake in your success. Internal stakeholders – anyone from a senior leader to a customer-facing employee to your core service providers or product makers – have a hand in moving your business forward. External stakeholders-Individuals outside your company also play an important role. Your customers, prospects, vendors, social media influencers, governmental agencies, potential hires, and others are impacted by your decisions and actions.
Second, stakeholder analysis reflects the project outcomes. You should identify the roles of the stakeholders in the project. Each stakeholder played a major role in each of the five measures. Williams (2002) emphasizes the importance of managing both internal and external stakeholders. External stakeholders focus more on the project outcomes; they will try to influence the outcomes, modify them or shape them based on their needs. Stakeholders’ influence tends to generate modifications, and thus leads to deviation from the original plan (Zidane et al, 2012). In this megaproject case, not all the external stakeholders have prioritized efficiency of the project; for instance, the landowners were more concerned about their own interests and how much they could earn when selling their land.
Reference: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1877050915027726
Thanks for your explanation. Stakeholders play important roles in a project. They affect the process internal and external. They are related to the return of the stockholders. Therefore, it is important to consider stakeholders’ needs.
You make a great point that identifying the stakeholders should be primary task to conduct a successful project. This would be helpful for managing stakeholders expectations and making better communications.
I agree that it is important to acknowledge that different types of stakeholders have different objectives and relate to different kinds of values within a project. Having these potential objectives and values identified upfront can help you prepare for future roadblocks these stakeholders may cause as the project goes on. I have found a related articles that identifies 8 different value perspectives for project stakeholders in megaprojects.
https://www.pmi.org/learning/library/stakeholder-value-constructs-megaprojects-10989
Thank you for your sharing. You really gave us a very detailed explanation about what and how to make a project succeed. The first and very important one would be Identifying the stakeholders. It is more like to know who are they and what they actually want.
yes , I agree with you. It’s important to identify all the stakeholders in people’s project upfront. Leaving out important stakeholders or their department’s function and not discovering the error until well into the project could be a project killer.
Stakeholder management is very complex for such a large project. One possible method of reducing potential communication issues and bureaucratic chaos would be to address specific project aspects. This would mean certain stakeholders are notified, consulted, etc. based on how they fit into the overall project. This would hopefully also help avoid stakeholder detachment – there is a negative impact if stakeholders are not actively engaged and concerned with the project.
It is important for a project to meet requirement of stockholders, because stockholders direct or indirect affect operations. The primary objective for stockholders is making profit. It is important to buy-in a project which is profitable. Stockholders are responsible for voting senior management in an organization. It affects operation in a business. In addition, they are responsible for financing and governance. Therefore it important for a project to meet the requirement of stockholders, because they do the best to play an important role in the project they can get benefit.
For example, the real estate company in my hometown usually starts to sell apartments while they are building. If they sales is good, they get ore money to make the building better. If the sales is not good. It is slower or them to build the building. T he project is related to stockholders’ benefits, so they can decide the process of building the houses based on the profits.
Thank you for your sharing and I agree with your point. I just have one question. What about if the requirements of stakeholders are not match? Like some stakeholders want something but the others really hate it?
Good question Ping.
In this situation, I think it is project manager’s responsibility to find out a balance point that agreed by all parties.
good experience. but you talk about stockholders instead of stakeholders. A project is successful when it achieves its objectives and meets or exceeds the expectations of the stakeholders. But who are the stakeholders? Stakeholders are individuals who either care about or have a vested interest in your project. They are the people who are actively involved with the work of the project or have something to either gain or lose as a result of the project.
Great example. Your example is a perfect explanation of the saying of “rob peter to pay paul.” I agree with you that the only thing that stakeholders care about from a project is profit.
Good analysis, Xinteng. It is true that the requirements marching is a critical part for stockholders making chooses on the projects. And the example you provided are pretty common but typical. Thank you for your sharing.
Great points, Chen! I agree with you. Stakeholders have an important role to play in the execution of the project. They govern the project committee by providing their input and resources (finance).
I had an internship in a headhunting company, which was a subsidiary of a corporation included education, real estate, and law firm. Most of the income of parent company is from immigrant investor program. The CEO of this corporation set a project about campus recruiting in the company I was working for; the purpose was to find potential customers to do investment immigration. I was engaged in this project by my supervisor. We worked serval weeks to build the project proposal and running structure and went to serval colleges for campus recruiting. It was running successfully, however, the CEO wanted to close this project because it did not bring to the stakeholder the huge benefit. The campus-related project spent money and time, on the opposite side, there were few potential customers want to join the investor program. It was very meaningful of this project itself, it helped college students to find interns and entry-level jobs, but we needed to pay college money to sign in for the tables on campus, and it cannot bring huge benefit to the stakeholders, that why this project had to be closed.
Mengqiao, thanks for sharing you experience. I think it is also important that in getting stakeholder involvement they are given all the information about the proposed project. Thorough research should be done about the project. This includes making projections on the costs that will be involved. Signing in for tables on campus should not have come as a surprise but should have been a cost that was expected. Probably even a survey of how many people were interested in the investor program would have provided valuable information on whether the company should undertake the project. You mentioned some important points about the project being beneficial to college students finding jobs. Investors usually would want the project to start making a return on their investment and if that does not happen they pull the plug.
Based on my understanding, you are talking about that project couldn’t create enough return to its shareholders. As the CEO of your organization, he is responsible to the Board of Directors so he must take fully responsibility of his every decision. Other stakeholders including potential customers and students who are looking for an intership are not the reason to affect the CEO’s decision, casue the CEO has to think about a long-term development plan for his company.
Mengqiao, thank you for your sharing. In your example, Besides the stakeholders’ interests, we can see how important the feasibility analyses are. In this project, the project manager should analyze the cost and benefit before they implementing the project.
Project is definitely a necessity in most projects, so it’s not outrageous to pull the plug if this doesn’t occur. However, intangible benefits might make it worthwhile despite the costs. This includes possible increased recruiting power at certain colleges, long-term relationships with particular schools for a powerful partnerships, good PR for the firm at various schools, etc. These could make something worthwhile, but that determination is of course up to the steering committee.
I used to have my own coffee shop some years ago. As a 21 years old person, I did not have enough money to open any business, so my parents invested the shop. The coffee shop was not very big. It was a small business and basically I was like a CEO or an operator and my parents, the investors, were more like the main stakeholders. During two years, when the coffee shop operating, there were many things, or “projects”, needed to be decided. Some of them succeeded and some others failed. For example, coffee shop cannot sell coffee only. I sometimes needed to think about creating new drinks or snacks. Once a customer said she really likes corns, but she does not have enough time to eat it when she was going to work every morning. Therefore, I planed to make a new thing called “milk corn cup,” which was put hot milk and cooked corn niblets into a cup so customers can eat corns with spoon and also can drink milk at same time. This idea was great but I still need my parents to approve it because I needed to buy new cups and corns which are not on my normal purchase list, and also I needed to explore the scale value for everything so that I could find a best flavor for my customers. After I explained to my parents about why I wanted to create this new product, and how we can make benefits from it, they decided to support me to do it (but of course I need to report all the details after I starting it). Then after couple months the “milk corn cup” was pushed out and the customers really like them. I made a lot of benefit from this product. Therefore, after all of this, I need to say that it was very important for my parents, the main stakeholders, to support me because if they felt like they do not want it or they did not believe that this product would make benefit, then I will not have enough investment to do it, and this “project” would finally failed.
yes, good example from your experience. Things surface that may impact stakeholders, but the PM may fail to make the stakeholders aware of the situation. As projects progress, the PM should continually ask the project team, “who is potentially impacted?” Engage stakeholders in the conversation as needed.
Thank you for sharing your experience that clearly show the importance of stakeholder involvement in a project. You did well by communication the vision and the mission of the project at every stage to your parents. Communicating with the project sponsors, getting their buy in, showing them the benefits of the project is very vital to every project. You also got customer feedback, which is important in every project. This drove you to start thinking about meeting the needs of the customers by proving “milk corn cup”. There is a need to always seek and incorporate feedback from the stakeholders for the project to be a success.
I really appreciate the detailed information from your own personal experience. Its interesting to me to consider investors as a class of stakeholder due to their importance in so many cases. On one hand, if a business wants to grow and develop a certain way and investors are not in agreement it can be very frustrating for Management – in whatever form it takes on. However, at times, investors are a type of stakeholder that can be a unique check and balance in business if Management needs them to access capital to steer in a desired direction. Sometimes that desired direction might be best avoided. Others it could be a missed opportunity. However, in either case, it seems that the value of investors as a type of stakeholder is evident in many ways. Thanks for sharing about your coffee shop. Its been a dream of mine to see my small town have a successful coffee shop!
Reading about your experiences in this post is fascinating! Owning and operating your own business is so challenging and rewarding and it is an instance where you yourself are the stakeholder. I feel that this gives you a first hand perspective and really forces you to choose what you believe will benefit the firm in the most positive way.
Hi Ping,
Thanks for sharing your experience operating your coffee shop. I liked how you correlated the corn example to a project and your parents being key stakeholders or better yet investors of the project. With that said, your project will not be successful without their role. This also leaves me to wonder the extent of which stakeholders should be prioritized and on what basis.
Congratulations on your entrepreneurial mindset! This is a smaller version of a project, but the rules still apply. You made a sound business case for the new product, and the investors liked it enough to approve it. True to your assessment, the product was popular and lucrative, so it was a successful project. Well done!
It is great to hear about your personal experience in running a business first hand. It goes to show how the “steering committee” in all projects must work together to make decisions. This also shows a great example of how listening to the key users (i.e. your customers) can be critical in ensuring a successful roll out of a new product. You were able to develop a new product based on their feedback which was successful.
The article I read is about the United States Department of Defense (DOD). DOD projects are difficult to manage due to various structural, behavioral, and environmental complexities. The project talked in the article called DOD lighter amphibian heavy-lift (LAMP-H) project, which was initiated by the U.S. Army to acquire crafts with amphibian and heavy-lifting capabilities. In order to be effective, the LAMP-Hs need to meet certain payload and speed requirements. Due to the complexity, there are various project stakeholders from above and below. Disagreements happen in the project management process; some of the stakeholders have a conflict on how to balance the payload and speed and some of the stakeholders have a conflict on how LAMP-H be operated. Besides, there was a disagreement on how many LAMP-H units should be purchased and at what unit price. This project was not initiated until 10 years; it is about 9.5 years later that it should be done. Through this article, we can learn that a project vision, mission and requirements analysis should be developed and articulated to increase the likelihood of a successful project outcome.
Reference: https://www.pmi.org/learning/library/project-stakeholder-management-failures-lessons-learned-5544
This is a problem that I saw often when I was active duty (full time) army. There was either low/no engagement or too many parties trying to have their say so. It’s interesting that the 3rd largest army in the world would not embrace project management best practices. It’s not even stressed at the middle management level.
Thank you for your good example. The conflicts or disagreements among stakeholders would also impact the process of a project. In this way, the function of stakeholders could not be ignored when planning and executing a project.
Great example. An effective project sponsor who believes that the project is both viable and necessary is essential to the success of any organizational project. This sponsor must also be willing to use the authority vested in him or her to build a coalition of support among the various project stakeholders. Adequate project sponsorship is important in relatively simple projects, so it is even more of a necessity in complex projects, such as defense acquisition projects.
Well down, Dongjie. You made a good analysis on the US DOD projects. As you stated, lack of the leadership and decision makers among the stakeholders can be a big issues and lead to the conflicts and reduce the efficiency.
Dongjie,
Per your researched article, I think conflicts between projects and stakeholders can be detrimental to the collective success of the project. Not only should this encourage a project manager to actively get stakeholders’ input on subject matters regarding the project, he or she should make it a point facilitate an open environment and reudce conflicts in all matters relating to the project. Thanks for sharing.
“Jetsmart” engineering parts management system is renamed “Dumbjet” by aircraft engineers because the system is so difficult to use. Failure to engage the engineers who would be the eventual users of the system into the requirements and design processes resulted in a system that the engineers deemed to be unusable once it was launched. After just a few years in operation (during which time some staff refused to use it and unions threatened industrial action), the system is dumped and a new system introduced. In one of the most egregious comments I’ve ever heard, Qantas’s Chief Financial officer is quoted in Australian IT Magazine as having said “We wouldn’t ask the engineers what their views on our software systems were. We’ll put in what we think is the appropriate for us”. Apparently the definition of “us” was too limited in this particular project and the failure to engage the right stakeholders resulted in the total rejection of the project and the need to start from scratch with a replacement. In the second take at the project Qantas learned its lesson and did indeed engage with the stakeholders.
http://calleam.com/WTPF/?p=2347
I’ve worked in a project for one of my MIS major course during undergraduate, as a business analyst. Our client is called BeHeardPhilly, a Temple University based research and survey platform covers Philadelphia area. Our key stakeholders involved the executives and key employees at BeHeardPhilly. Our project is to develop a client facing interface and data delivery system.
The important way to make stakeholder interest in our project is to show them our comprehensive project plan. The point is make them understand what we can bring them to meet their requirements. The productivity will sure to be enhanced ,also the final deliverable will be the right thing they want.
When you get support from stakeholders, it will be a lot easier to communicate with them as the project progress and get more details to support our work
I’m glad to hear you have support from the stakeholders of your project. My friend who just graduated from the Computer Information Systems program. He had a similar capstone project for his last 2 semesters. Their primary stakeholder was the Temple Student Government and the Student Programming Office. They lost the interest of the SPO and the project was cancelled in the second semester. It was disappointing to him that because of one primary stakeholder the project was gone in a flash. It sounds like your team’s relationship with your stakeholders is strong. Good luck!
Well said Xiaozhou, thank you for sharing your experience. The support from the stakeholders is critical to a successful project management; nevertheless, stakeholders only care about what value they can get from this project. Therefore, like you said, a comprehensive project plan to make them understand what you can bring to them would be vital.
Hi,
It’s really interesting reading about your experiences as a Business Analyst in your class because I am taking that same class this semester. It’s really interesting getting to know a client and understanding their wants and needs. I think establishing trust with the stakeholders is extremely important when working in these types of projects and that is what will make the outcome successful in the end.
Hi Xiaozhou,
I agree with your insight on discussing your comprehensive plan with stakeholders. I think sometimes it is even necessary to go the extra mile and give stakeholders the opportunity full comprehend their role in a project and how it will impact their lives. Thanks for sharing this experience.
I agree with you, Xiaozhou! The stakeholders invest in the project and, hence, they deserve to know the progress of an ongoing project. One way to ensure that stakeholders are in the loop is through effective communication. The project manager should clearly communicate the comprehensive plan of the project effectively.
Good example Xiaozhou. I think gaining trust from the main stakeholders is a very important step, which helps to reduce the confliction and improve the quality of the deliverables.
In my current role as an Internal Auditor in Community Banking, I was involved with a project approximately 18 months ago, to analyze the potential benefit of launching an in-house Wealth Management Dept. This was a case where I was able to experience first-hand the importance of stakeholder buy-in with respect to a project. My role, due to my background as a Financial Advisor, was to work with a Vice President at the research level, and then provide scenarios on the topic of bank net income similar to the approach we discussed in working with Gantt charts: optimistic, realistic, and pessimistic.
After approximately eight weeks of regular meetings and discussion, I was advised that the Executive Management team had been advised by an unnamed stakeholder that the bank’s primary market was not appropriate for the launch and the project would be closed down immediately. This occurred based on the feedback of only one stakeholder that I can only assume was at a level as high as the Board of Directors, due to being unnamed.
When inquiring as to why the project was closed down prior to formal presentation of my findings, the only feedback I was given to justify the advice Executive Management received and accepted was that the stakeholder believed certain trends to be emerging in the financial services industry that would work against the project long-term. I felt the assumptions of the anonymous stakeholder to be incorrect based on experience, research, and generational retirement statistics. However, without a chance to present such information formally to all stakeholders, there was no way to keep the project in motion. The project was closed down as advised. This taught me that stakeholder buy-in to a project is of the utmost importance, at all levels, in many organizations.
A few years ago I was elected student government president at the community college of Philadelphia. The previous student government association was unable to accomplish any of their stated goals. The student organizations which they governed were not properly funded by them and were less successful. The previous president had lost favour with the administration and faculty. Students, faculty and college administrators all had a negative opinion of SGA.
In order for my student government and minister ration to be effective, I believed I had to get students, faculty and administrators to reinvest in the SGA. I personally want to visit key faculty and administrative hours to understand their previous relationship with the SGA, what they saw as pauses from that relationship and what they would like to improve. My team and I conducted periodic surveys on a weekly basis to understand what students from different degree paths or interest in. I also reached out to Other stakeholders that the SGA had not previously engaged with such as the board of trustees And non-profit organizations that interacted with CCP.
After 2 months of engagement, presentations and events our stakeholders Not only truths to reinvest in the trust with the SGA but in our specific goals. As a result, I actually found out we’ve received an award that spanned over the last 3 years starting with my presidency. The award was for the creation and ongoing success of a food bank that made free lunches available for students who were not able to afford consistent meals.
The experience taught me that stakeholder involvement is something that is easier to lose than build, that success is easier with stakeholder engagement and those strong relationships with stakeholders can benefit you far past your initial goals. I’m still able to talk and depend on many of the people at various levels of CCP today.
As an Internal Auditor in Community Banking, I was involved with a project approximately 18 months ago, to analyze the potential benefit of launching an in-house Wealth Management Dept. This was a case where I was able to experience first-hand the importance of stakeholder buy-in with respect to a project. My role, due to my background as a Financial Advisor, was to work with a Vice President at the research level, and then provide scenarios on the topic of bank net income similar to the approach we discussed in working with Gantt charts: optimistic, realistic, and pessimistic.
Following several weeks of regular meetings and discussion, I was advised that the Executive Management team had been advised by an unnamed stakeholder that the bank’s primary market was not appropriate for the launch and the project would be closed down immediately. This occurred based on the feedback of only one stakeholder that I can only assume was at a level as high as the Board of Directors, due to being unnamed.
Upon inquiring as to why the project was closed down prior to formal presentation of my findings, the only feedback I was given to justify the advice Executive Management received and accepted was that the stakeholder believed certain trends to be emerging in the financial services industry that would work against the project long-term. I felt the assumptions of the anonymous stakeholder to be incorrect based on experience, research, and generational retirement statistics. However, without a chance to present such information formally to all stakeholders, there was no way to keep the project in motion. The project was closed down as advised. This taught me that stakeholder buy-in to a project is of the utmost importance, at all levels, in many organizations.
Hi Jason,
Thank you for sharing your own experience and it was really remarkable. Stakeholders do play an important role in a project or a plan. There would be good outcomes when gaining their support so that things may go through more efficient and save the cost. Vice versa, if it is hard to get the support from stakeholders, the project may be delayed or stopped.
Jason,
I totally agree with what you’re saying in regards to stakeholder involvement and relationships. I made the point in another thread that some degree of sales skills could be necessary to communicate vision, purpose, etc. to stakeholders. Along with that, I believe the interpersonal skills for relationship management may very well go hand-in-hand. In my opinion, you were very wise to point out that stakeholder involvement can be easier to lose than gain. I believe that in possessing those two skills and using them to communicate and interact, those long-term beneficial relationships you mention are able to be developed to a much stronger extent.
As an Internal Auditor in Community Banking, I was involved with a project approximately 18 months ago, to analyze the potential benefit of launching an in-house Wealth Management Dept. This was a case where I was able to experience first-hand the importance of stakeholder buy-in with respect to a project. My role, due to my background as a Financial Advisor, was to work with a Vice President at the research level, and then provide scenarios on the topic of bank net income similar to the approach we discussed in working with Gantt charts: optimistic, realistic, and pessimistic.
Following several weeks of regular meetings and discussion, I was advised that the Executive Management team had been advised by an unnamed stakeholder that the bank’s primary market was not appropriate for the launch and the project would be closed down immediately. This occurred based on the feedback of only one stakeholder that I can only assume was at a level as high as the Board of Directors, due to being unnamed.
Upon inquiring as to why the project was closed down prior to formal presentation of my findings, the only feedback I was given to justify the advice Executive Management received and accepted was that the stakeholder believed certain trends to be emerging in the financial services industry that would work against the project long-term. I felt the assumptions of the anonymous stakeholder to be incorrect based on experience, research, and generational retirement statistics. However, without a chance to present such information formally to all stakeholders, there was no way to keep the project in motion. The project was closed down as advised. This taught me that stakeholder buy-in to a project is of the utmost importance, at all levels, in many organizations.
I have never been involved with a project, but I did find an example that reflect on the level of stockholder interest in the project, and their involvement, and how this affected the project. This example shows how failures in IT project stakeholder management may impact, directly or indirectly, the deadlines of projects. It is possible to investigate the problem of IT projects delays from different perspectives: inadequate planning, a high degree of uncertainty due to a new technology, constant changes in the scope; poor communication from stakeholders, etc… Because of to the interaction with stakeholders (through communication) is considered the main shortcoming of project managers in Brazil (PMI Chapters, 2011), it was chosen to understand the delay phenomenon in relation to the effectiveness of the stakeholder’s management of the IT projects. The exploration of these delays or other failures in IT projects through the stakeholders’ theory is still an approach little used by the academic and professional environment. As an example of something that should be taken into account, is that many of the IT projects are complex in terms of technological innovation and / or number of interfaces between the players (stakeholders) involved. This fact projects a high level of uncertainty to these projects related to the technology involved, the delivery date as well as the horizon of the stakeholders involved (Vaagaasar 2011).
References:
Chapters do PMI. (2011). PMsurvey.org 2011 edition. Recuperado em 29 de setembro de 2012, de http://www.pmsurvey.org.
Vaagaasar, A. L. (2011). Development of relationships and relationship competencies in complex project. ISMPB, 4(2), 294-307.
https://www.revistafuture.org/FSRJ/article/download/116/246
As an internal auditor in Community Banking, I was involved with a project approximately 18 months ago, to analyze the potential benefit of launching an in-house Wealth Management Dept. This was a case whereI was able to experience first-hand the importance of stakeholder buy-in with respect to a project. My role, due to my background as a financial advisor, was to work with a Vice President at the research level, and then provide scenarios on the topic of bank net income similar to the approach we discussed in working with Gannt charts: optimistic, realistic, and pessimistic. Following several weeks of regular meetings and discussion, I was informed that the Executive Management team had been advised that by an unnamed stakeholder that the bank’s primary market was not appropriate for the launch and the project would be closed down immediately. This occurred based on the feedback of only one stakeholder that I can only assume was at a level as high as Board of Directors, due to being unnamed.
Upon inquiring as to why the project was closed down prior to formal presentation of my findings, the only feedback I was given to justify the advise of Executive Management received and accepted was that the stakeholder believed certain trends to be emerging in the financial services industry that would work against the project long-term. I felt the assumptions of the anonymous stakeholder to be incorrect based on experience, research, and generational retirement statistics. However, without a chance to present such information formally to all stakeholders, there was no way to keep the project in motion. The project was closed down as advised. This taught me that stakeholder buy-in to a project is of the utmost importance, at all levels, in many organizations.
In late 1972, Germany, Belgium, Netherlands, British, and France plan to charge the Siemens subsidiary Interatom to build a fast breeder nuclear reactor SNR-300 in Kalkar, North Rhine-Westphalia. At that time, with the rapidly developing of the economics, the lack of energy has gradually become an urgent issue. So, 5 countries invested over 4 billion USD on this project together for sharing the electricity it would produce. For Germany, even local anti-nuclear movement have never stopped during the 12 years while it was building. However, the economic booms and the job opportunities provided by this project make Germany keep this project. However, right after1985, it completed, the operation of SNR-300 was blocked by the conflicts between the local government and the governments. And one year later, Chernobyl disaster happened. The demolition of parts of the facility costs another 75 million euros. The failure of this project has its time limitation. But the ignore of the environment and political issues from the beginning and the ambiguous benefit and costs separation are also in consideration.
Interesting example, Rouying. On the surface, the failure of this nuclear reactor is because the federal government couldn’t coordinate the conflict between economics and environment. Essentially, the root casue of this failure is that federal government didn’t think about every relevant stakeholder’s benefits in this project. For instance, as local residents, they worried about the safety factor of this nuclear recator especially after the Chernobyl incident.
Stakeholders are actually play an important role in the process of project implementation. There is a very simple example from my own experience. When I applied for graduate school, the application materials require the recommendation letter from one or two professors. In this way, professors become the stakeholders of my case. If I could not find anyone, I could not submit my application and even submit the application would not be approved. Luckily my professors are nice and friendly to write me the recommendation letter, but this is the simple example to show that how stakeholders may impact you even in daily life. Sometimes getting the support from them would make difference on your plan and project and losing their support may make things harder to complete.
Hi Yingyan,
Great response! I really like how well you related the project and stakeholder aspect of things to your graduate school application process. I think when it comes down to it a lot of things we do in our daily lives are actually scaled down projects and its great to see that correlation. Thanks!
Good explanation, Yinyan. I can’t agree with you more toward the idea about the importance of supports from stakeholders. Without the support of stakeholders, the project would never be succeed.
Hi Yingyan,
This is a great example of how stakeholders make a difference in completing or not completing a project. I like how you tied in your application process and the success of it relying on the reference letters. Stakeholders can be the driving force behind a project moves forward, so it is important to have stakeholders buy-in early on.
I agree with you Yingyan. The stakeholder’s support plays a critical role in the project management process. In order to gain their support, the project manager should show a positive attitude and reliability.
In researching successful projects that can be attributed to stakeholder involvement, I identified a project where stakeholder involvement in the site selection process was paramount to the project’s success.
Site selection for a project can sometimes be a stressful and complicated process. In this project of building a geological disposal facility for radioactive waste, the company – SKB made it a priority to establish a profound and corresponding relationship to all of its stakeholders after selecting its site for the project. Per the case, considerable thought was given to prioritizing target groups and applying the appropriate communication approach to the respective groups. The number one objective was to make prioritized target groups aware of and feel positive about the localization of the repository. Local politicians and local people who live nearby, close to the site, where approached in a friendly and an open manner. Transparency was the policy of SKB. Telling people about their plans and the investigatio¬n, holding experts’ presentations, open meetings and seminars on specific subjects allowed the public to develop trust and get familiar with and less intimidated by the construction. This approach was instrumental to the success of this project.
Hi
This the perfect example of how stakeholders should always be involved in projects. In the case of the localisation of this geological disposal facility for radioactive waste, I was crucial to be accessible to the people. to let them know about their plans, and to build trust just as they did. Haven’t they had done that, The project would have been a complete failure for sure, because the local people who live nearby would have heavily protested this project because they would have seen it as a threat. In their views it would be just another giant capitalist big corporate trying to quick people out of the area.
Derrick you make a great point on the importance of transparency in a project. Considering the level of transparency necessary for each stakeholder is an important thing to consider in the communication plan. In your example, being open about the plans and meetings helped to develop trust and ultimately worked in SKB’s favor. This helped to gain stakeholder buy in and ensure project success.
In the video game industry, the most ordinary cooperation mode is that a specific studio is in charge of game design but the publish of this game would be handed to another corporation, and they share profit and take risk together. In Japan, a talented game designer, Hideo Kojima, is developing his new game project with his team.
Since this game is a sequel of his classic game series, Metal Gear Solid, which has a profound influence in the gamer’s mind. Therefore, Hideo Kojima decided to keep the original topic of this game so that it is still going to be a spy game with political elements. However, thinking about the rising of Zombie theme, the publisher Konami determined to integrate Zombie elements into this game.
As the project’s investor and major shareholder, even though Kojima rejected this advice, Konami still changed the theme of this game successfully through dismissing the entire team of Hideo Kojima. Recently, according to latest news, this new game with Zombie topic is available soon.
Although we are not able to judge this decision so far, I believe professional work should always be performed by professionals. As the investors or major shareholders, their involvement in the project should be limited to a certain context.
Thank you for your sharing Yijiang. The influences of shareholders are not always positive. As the publisher of Metal Gear Solid, Hideo Kojima had the deepest understanding toward the projects. The chooses of the topic can significant effect publisher’s designs. As you said the shareholders should tolerate certain levels of freedom, especial on cultural industry.
Hi
I partly disagree with your statement. As you said creator Hideo of the metal gear solid series created a game that had a huge influence on gamers. there fore there is a special connection with the metal gear solid community. Konami should have dismissed Hideo Kojima’s team and changed the theme of this game, just because there is a rising thrend in Zombie apocalypse games. I believe that what caused the gamers to have this special connection with the metal gear solid games was because it was a metal gear solid game, had its own genre, and not another game trying to copy off from other genres. I belive the best course of action is always to get he stakeholders input, and in this case it would have helped to release surveys or demos or beta versions of the game to players to see what their opinion would be about the new game, before going forward with releasing a zombie themed game. My point is Konami who is in charge of releasing the game should has made sure at first that this is something that the fans of the series want. It is always important to leave enough room for the stakeholders desire to be satisfied. Not taking them into consideration will mostly make this game fail like many others today.
Yes, I agree with you that the theme of the game should be what the fans want, not just the technical team and the stakeholders, which will lack the participation of players.
You made a very good point, Jason. I think in this case, the best solution is not ignoring the shareholder’s advice. Instead, the designer should find a way persuade the shareholders and let them believe that another stakeholder, which is gamer, will love the theme.
Dongjie, I totally agree with you. If a project failed to consider needs and interests, the outcomes of the project would not be able to meet requirements and expectations of stakeholder even if the project was successfully implemented.
I also agree with Dongjie, if the stakeholder’s advice is different with the designed, we should find way to persuade the stakeholder and get theirs support.
So for the last year and a half, I have been apart of a steering committee that was formed to identify and implement a payment system for our patient participants. Currently, our patients are paid cash for their participation in a study. As auditors/future auditors you can imagine that the use of cash is a huge risk. Nevertheless, cash seems to be the driving factor of if and who participates in a particular study.
Over the last several years there have been talks about reducing the use of cash, but in doing so we also risk-reducing or jeopardizing our IRB (Institutional Review Boards) programs. Although the stakeholder buy-in is present the issue is finding a system/product that would best meet the needs of all departments involved (e.g. Principal Investigators, Accounts Payable, Grant Accounting, Finance). Our time spent on this project has mostly been seeking a system. I believe this project had not been canceled because the stakeholder buy-in is strong. I have witnessed other project that was more important then this one (in my opinion) get canceled for smaller/less important reasons. Nevertheless, the participant payment process still continues despite the fact we have interviewed the bidding vendors twice.
Stakeholders are vital to a project’s existence, as evidenced in your post. If the stakeholders are very happy with the project, it could actually survive with bad circumstances. Also, the lack of communication with the vendor seems like it could hurt the project in the long run, but the stakeholder backing is clearly important.
Hi James,
I couldn’t agree more. To date the project I referenced in my post has not been approved, and I believe this is a direct result the project not being supported by our stakeholders.
A funny thing… Over the years I have been privy to several projects, and what I realized is if the stakeholder’s buy-in is not there the projects will not succeed. However, if the stakeholder’s buy-in is there the projects are completed successfully in no time.
You may also find examples of projects using the library resources, and discuss an example of a project failure or success that can be attributed to stakeholder involvement in a project.
“Jetsmart” engineering parts management system is renamed “Dumbjet” by aircraft engineers because the system is so difficult to use. Failure to engage the engineers who would be the eventual users of the system into the requirements and design processes resulted in a system that the engineers deemed to be unusable once it was launched. After just a few years in operation (during which time some staff refused to use it and unions threatened industrial action), the system is dumped and a new system introduced. In one of the most egregious comments I’ve ever heard, Qantas’s Chief Financial officer is quoted in Australian IT Magazine as having said “We wouldn’t ask the engineers what their views on our software systems were. We’ll put in what we think is the appropriate for us”. Apparently the definition of “us” was too limited in this particular project and the failure to engage the right stakeholders resulted in the total rejection of the project and the need to start from scratch with a replacement. In the second take at the project Qantas learned its lesson and did indeed engage with the stakeholders.
http://calleam.com/WTPF/?p=2347
From your example, it can be seen that Qantas did not take stakeholders into consideration when replacing the system. As a result, the project was rejected by stakeholders and the result failed. This shows that stakeholders take an important part in the decision-making power of the project.
Not using stakeholders in a project is something that usually proves costly, and this is an example. I think that stakeholders should be used to a point, but not where they are heavily impacting the project. But, it would have been helpful to get some help in this case.
http://calleam.com/WTPF/?p=2347
During my First Internship at PwC where I was put in the marketing department, I have had the opportunity to work on a office space management project with other co workers. Each cubicle had a trash can underneath it to help employees keep the office space clean as well as big recycle bins in the conference rooms. However there were talks about a better way to manage the office space and the whole janitorial cleaning process in order to help the company go green and also save on electricity. Therefore the idea of this office management project was given to us intern, as an assignment (side project) by one of our supervisors. My coworkers and I were in charge of completing it. By replacing the regular cubicle trash cans by plastic net trash cans that can only take dry trash (papers, plactics etc….) instead of perishable trash the company would encourage its employees to recycle helping the companies Going green initiative. The regular trash cans would only be kept inthe big conference rooms. The project also included a new proposal for the janitorial staff. Instead of waiting until 5 or 6pm after everyone leave to cleanup, they could clean during the day while everyone is working, and it would be much faster and easier for them since employees would only have dry trash at their desks. All the heavy trash would be in the trash cans in the conference room. This initiative would also help the company save on unnecessary electricity used when the Janitorial staff would come in to clean up at night. This was a really good initiative that would help the company save money and would also move it forward in its going green initiative. The project seemed ready to go but after some questioning from stakeholders (primarily another supervisor who was also involved in the project) the project was put on hold. Some employees did not wanna have Janitorial staff walking around and cleaning while they were doing work. It was believe that this project would increase traffic in the office, it could also be to distractive and there was also data security due to the staff seeing what some employees are working on on their computers, or what client engagement they are working on. Because that was an issue with so many other stakeholders the project ended up not happening even though it could potentially bring economic benefits to the company, and give it a better public image.
Based on exploratory research conducted by the UK in thematic and cluster analysis, it was investigated how stakeholders in local communities are perceived, defined, and categorized by project managers in major public infrastructure and construction projects (MPICs) and how their participation Can improve the performance of these projects. Due to MPIC’s perceived benefit gap, organized actions by “secondary stakeholder” organizations lead to delays, cost overruns, and significant damage to the organization’s reputation. Stakeholder management is an important process aimed at maximizing proactiveness and minimizing negative attitudes by taking into account the needs and requirements of all project stakeholders. However, the current project stakeholder management mechanism is passive rather than proactive, primarily to provide a toolholder perspective to enable stakeholders to meet project needs. Therefore, there is a need to include more broadly with the secondary stakeholders that may be impaired by the organizational strategy, such as local communities, to improve MPIC’s performance.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/321729186_Project_manager's_perception_of_the_local_communities'_stakeholder_in_megaprojects_An_empirical_investigation_in_the_UK
Stakeholder managements seems like a useful way to improve a project. It is important to manage these people in a way that will not hurt the project or slow it down while still taking their thoughts into account. It is a difficult thing to do, but it is vital in a project.
My previous (undergraduate) institution is a small yet diversified college. It represents students from countries all over the world. After the retirement of the 20th president, a new president took over. With visions to increase the number of students and raise money, the new president devised project addressed both of his vision. The project that the president wanted to execute involved a significant change in the admission decision process. Basically, the new project suggested that the institution should no longer accept international students as they did not help in raising money (according to the new president). However, this idea (accepting only domestic students and not taking internal students) did not seem appealing to the stakeholders (board of directors, alumni and parents association). Hence, this created in conflict of ideas and the new president soon stepped down from his role.
This is an interesting situation that occurred at your school. It was clear that your president was more concerned with being profitable, while the other stakeholders valued diversity. This is an example of two parties with conflicting views and them subsequently changing a project.
In the recent year, major changes occurred in thinking and planning about organizational management and decision making. Substantial evidence has now been provided that the stakeholder involvement is essential for management effectiveness. Feedback from stakeholder has a critical value for the project managers in a way it leads them to the social, financial, environmental, and ethical implication of the project activities. In addition, the involvement of stakeholders has strong motivation to the project managers to plan and execute new program changes.
One of the complexities of involving stakeholders includes dealing with conflict of interest that arise between stakeholders. By the stakeholders, the first group that usually is the shareholders. However, project managers are dealing with various stakeholders in the project such as CEOs and top managers in the company. This being mentioned, the entire planning, scheming and modeling directed to success and security of the project.
Currently, I’m working on the implementation of a new ERP system. Dealing with stakeholders conflict of interest is a daily challenge for the team, this can lead delay to accomplish project timelines, following the project Gantt Chart and archiving the project scope.
I definitely see the conflict of interest arising when dealing with multiple stakeholders. There can be a lot of stakeholders and all of them could have varying opinions. It can be difficult to manage all of these opinions while doing what is best for the project.
Stakeholders are those that have interests or support a project. Stakeholders could be customers, employees, board members, and owners. At times stakeholders will oppose decisions regarding a project because of personal interest or for the betterment of the organization.
Stakeholders buy-in is the active and positive involvement of stakeholder in a project. Stakeholders buy-in regulates how much a stakeholder will put in a project for success. When managing a project, the project manager should observe these for success with stakeholders.
• Identify and list stakeholders – review the scope of the project for those that could be affected by both the project and its deliverables.
• Develop and categorize a stakeholder list – stakeholders are not equally equal. Some stakeholders have more power or influence on a project. When this happens, that stakeholder buy-in becomes critical to the success of the project. Each stakeholder must be treated base on their importance to the projects.
• Influential stakeholders must be involved with the project from the onset – key stakeholders need to feel a part of the process, not just supporter of a project.
• Establish expectations for both stakeholder participation and updating and stick to expectations. For example, if you commit to weekly reports, ensure you issue weekly reports. Loss of trust will erode stakeholder confidence. Recognize that stakeholder buy-in is not a one-time event and must be maintained.
• All outcome (good or bad) must be communicated for better decision making – it is true that stakeholders want to hear the good news but concealing the bad news will cause more harm. Help stakeholders decide the success of the project.
If a project manager has the afore-mentioned attitude, stakeholders buy-in is achievable; then success is sure.
I worked on a project for a regional bank where the country head of operation was left out of decision making regarding finances. He raised the issue, then management decided to appease him by assigning him as the first line of contact for the project which he graciously excepted, but with some curves.
At the beginning of the project, the head of operations expedited all communication, except financials. His defense was, his appointment was a setup. Over time, the head of operations, got involved with the project at all levels then he felt a part of the process. His action helped his success and not just the project. He supported the project at all levels and encouraged other stakeholders to support.
Hi,
It is important for IT Project Managers to always categorize or classify stakeholders involved in a project and develop appropriate communication technique suitable for each group. Effective communication and integrity of information is key to the success of a project. IT Project managers should always provide adequate information about a project to the stakeholders to gain their confidence and support for the project.
I was involved in creating a gamification program to incentivize students to be more engaged in an undergrad program. The stakeholders included departmental leadership, other staff involved in system design and building/maintenance, departmental faculty, students in the program, and prospective students who would use the program. The involvement was about as intense as I myself wished it to be, though some faculty were engaged via physical meetings and email for status updates. I quickly realized that I needed to be proactive in communication management with the stakeholders, as they were all very busy and couldn’t be relied upon to handle their own comm mgmt on the project.
Stakeholders can be very useful when attempting a project. They are directly affected by the decisions that a team makes, but this does not mean that they know best. People who are not involved with the project but are affected by it will usually pull for decisions that keeps things the same way, unless there is a glaring problem. Listening to these people too closely can cause projects to stagnate, because the team is trying to appease everyone. Stakeholders should be used in a project to a point. When your decisions are greatly influenced by stakeholder input, it could lead to project failure.
Thank you James, I agree with you that when you decisions are greatly influenced by stakeholder input, it could lead to project failure. sometimes, stakeholder is the key important in projects but not every decision which stakeholder made is correct. we should analysis every situation before we do.
Well, we discuss the importance of stakeholder buy-in when staring a project. For example, I have worked for a real estate company a few years ago. Before the company start to build up, they will do the market survey. Such as how many people interested in this real estate and estimate what percentage people would buy it after the building complete. If the survey showed the market over the demand, the stakeholder would invest more finance to the building. This is an example showed a project failure or success can be attributed to stakeholder involvement
An example of the importance of stakeholder buy in is the beach extension project that is has occurred on the Jersey shore. Following the disaster that Hurricane Sandy left behind, it was suggested a project be completed that extended the dunes and the beach. This left the stakeholders of the beachfront properties upset because it would devalue their property because they would lose their view of the ocean. They fought back and held the project up from moving forward, but ultimately Governor Christie pushed the project to be started.