Greenbank Bulletin

By Ashley Birchall, Head of Programme Management, Atos

When I am asked what the critical success factors are in delivering successful projects and programmes, I always start with stakeholder management.  Our projects are complex, with multiple variables, clients under their own pressures and plenty of things that can go wrong.  When things do change and (and they will!) the 'difference that makes the difference' is having a solid set of both internal and client relationships to fall back on…

The projects we run affect a lot of people. The more people you affect, the more likely it is that your actions will impact people who have power and influence over your projects. These people could be strong supporters of your work - or they could block it.

The benefits of using a stakeholder-based approach are that:

• You can use the opinions of the most powerful stakeholders to shape your projects at an early stage.   Not only does this make it more likely that they will support you, their input can also improve the quality of your project
• Gaining support from powerful stakeholders can help you to win more resources!
• By communicating with stakeholders early and frequently, you can ensure that they fully understand what you are doing and understand the benefits of your project - this means they can support you actively when necessary
• You can anticipate what people's reaction to your project may be, and build into your plan the actions that will win people's support.

I see stakeholder management as a key project and programme management activity - as important as the more technical aspects of our role and there are 3 distinct things we all need to do to be successful here:

1. Identify the right stakeholders (internal as well as external)
2. Understand  their own needs and pressures
3. Pro-actively build effective relationships with key stakeholders

Step 1 - Identify the right stakeholders

In your role, consider all the people you might come into contact with - even indirectly through others.  They might be full time account staff, clients, contractors, or colleagues in other parts of our organisation.

Some of the following questions may help you with this ….

• Who in has the authority to sign off deals and who influences that decision maker;
• Who needs to be kept informed of progress and issues throughout the delivery;
• Who owns the resources you need to be successful;
• Who are the key clients you will be delivering to;
• Which clients are impacted by what you are delivering (normally the business stakeholders);
• Who could trip you up or block success;
• Who is the gatekeeper to a key resource (e.g. the CEOs PA).

Having done this, you need to prioritise them - you may now have a long list of people and organizations that are affected by your work. Some of these may have the power either to block or advance. Some may be interested in what you are doing, others may not care.

Map out your stakeholders on a simple Power/Interest Grid and classify them by their power over your work and by their interest in your work.

Someone's position on the grid shows you the actions you have to take with them:

• High power, interested people: these are the people you must fully engage and make the greatest efforts to satisfy.
• High power, less interested people: put enough work in with these people to keep them satisfied, but not so much that they become bored with your message.
• Low power, interested people: keep these people adequately informed, and talk to them to ensure that no major issues are arising. These people can often be very helpful with the detail of your project.
• Low power, less interested people: again, monitor these people, but do not bore them with excessive communication.

Step 2 - Understand their own needs and pressures

You need to know more about your key stakeholders.  You need to know how they are likely to feel about and react to your project. You also need to know how best to engage them in your project and how best to communicate with them.

Key questions that can help you understand your stakeholders are:

• Their personality type (eg INSIGHTS)
• How are they measured?
• Their priorities?
• What's causing them pain right now?
• What would make them successful / look good?
• Who are they connected to?
• Their past experience of our organisation?
• What financial or emotional interest do they have in the outcome of your work?
• What information do they want from you?
• What is their current opinion of your work? Is it based on good information?
• Who influences their opinions generally, and who influences their opinion of you? Do some of these influencers therefore become important stakeholders in their own right?
• If they are not likely to be positive, what will win them around to support your project?
• If you don't think you will be able to win them around, how will you manage their opposition?
• Who else might be influenced by their opinions?  Do these people become stakeholders in their own right?

Step 3 - Have a pro-active influencing plan

Many people leave it until they actually want something before approaching stakeholders for questions or favours.  We all know how this feels when we are on the receiving end - so try the following instead….

-          Build a clear plan for your top 5 stakeholders

-          Use this plan to make these people your 'allies'

-          Consciously decide what you want them to think about you, your organisation or your project.  In other words what reputation do you want to have with them?

-          Use the questions above to understand the things they value most - their 'currencies' and pro-actively support them in this - ie can you make them look good, help them with resource, make their life easier, provide them interesting information, introduce them to others?

-          Don't forget that everybody is different - don't assume they want the same things as you do, so the more you can "walk in their shoes" the more successful you will be….

Once you have built up 'credit' in this way, it's a lot easier to ask for favours and they may in fact actively seek out ways to help you! These relationships can make your projects run more smoothly, can help to give a win-win from difficult situations, can reduce escalations as they have a relationship with you (or at least give you pre warning of a potential escalation). Your relationship with your customer can make a massive difference to the success of your project or programme, do not underestimate the importance of this or neglect it due to other time pressures. It can make a huge difference to success and customer perception of success.

Footnote - Atos & Greenbank

By Ian Hirst, Greenbank Partner

Atos is an international information technology services company with annual 2010 pro forma revenues of EUR 8.6 billion and 74,000 employees in 42 countries. Serving a global client base, it delivers hi-tech transactional services, consulting and technology services, systems integration and managed services.

Greenbank has been working with Atos for the last 6 years in a number of different areas - in particular developing sales skills for their business consultants and running a series of leadership and commercial skills programmes for the Project and Programme Management teams.  In total over 400 consultants and programme / project managers have been through our programmes and feedback has been consistently excellent.