stakeholder management in a matrix organisation - 25th august 2015

Stakeholder management

in a matrix environment

A Programme Management SIG webinar

www.apm.org.uk/progm

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website and ProgM microsite

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Stakeholder management

in a matrix environment

Jake Holloway

A Programme Management SIG webinar


Webinar: Stakeholder

Management in a Matrix

Organisation

Jake Holloway

Clarity for complex change www.xceedgroup.com/shm

Introduction

Stakeholder Management is critical to project and programme

success. It separates good PMs from administrators.

In many organisations not all of the team members report to the

project manager.

This matrix of responsibility means more complex stakeholder

management. It causes a number of issues and tensions between

the project and functions, and also across multiple projects and

programmes.

The webinar looks at Stakeholder Management both generally and

within Matrix Organisations.

www.xceedgroup.com/shm

25/08/2

015

9

What the webinar will cover

Stakeholder Management Basics

Stakeholder Management process

Building your stakeholder map

Support v Influence Matrix

Effective Stakeholder Communication

Understanding Your Stakeholder’s Other Priorities

Stakeholder Persuasion Techniques:- building stakeholder support

Matrix Stakeholder Management

Types of Matrix organisations and their PM/SHM issues

Handling Matrix stakeholders and their issues

Q&A

Stakeholder

Management basics


(1) Refine stakeholder catalogue

(2) Define stakeholder

requirements

(3) Understand stakeholder opinion & influence

(4) Create stakeholder plan

(5) Prioritise & Execute plan

(6) Measure/Review

progress

Catalogue

Requirements

Understand

Plan

Do

Check

Stakeholder

management is

organised human

interaction


A tested back out

What is a stakeholder?

Not only the Sponsor(s)

Not only the people who have project requirements

Definition: stakeholders are individuals or groups who can impact

on the real or perceived success of a project or programme

They are all the people who you need something from

Sponsors and other interested Executives

Project team members, including suppliers & contractors

Internal and external customers (users, recipients, operations staff,

sales & marketing)

Gatekeepers

Matrix: Functional managers, resource owners

Rehearsals

Brand Protection

The catalogue should cover

All Individuals, groups, and sub-groups who have distinct inputs, needs,

opinions, and levels of authority

Think as widely as possible – projects and programmes can fail simply

because the PM does not identify the most important stakeholders!

Initial information should include

What is your access to them?

Where are they?

What communication channels do they use?

Who do key individuals report to?

What professional and personal authority do they have? (e.g. on a scale 1

to 10)

In order for the project/programme to be a success, and to be

perceived as one;

What does the project/programme need from them?

What do they want from the project/programme – in order for you to get

what you need?

Include in what you need;

Information, requirements & approvals

Resource and work request execution

Approval of process or methods used

Approvals of deliverables, quality etc.

Hard work, possibly above and beyond the call of duty

Executive decisions

Support and project/programme ‘promotion’ (or at least compliance /

agreement)

Behaviour change, adoption of new practices

Assess how important each stakeholder’s requirements are (e.g. on

a scale of 1 to 10)


Organisational

relationships Statements

of work

RACI

matrices

Personal

relationships

Favouritism

Rivalries

Shared

interests

“History”

Proximity Common

objectives

Language

and culture

Previous co-

operation

The influence iceberg

The more positive the stakeholders the easier the

project/programme

In a crisis, positive opinions and stakeholder support delivered via

their influence networks could save you!

Negative stakeholders can kill it!

What do you know of their attitude towards;

The project/programme generally and the benefits to them

(professionally and personally) of it succeeding

Fulfilling your requirements of them

Will it mean a lot of work? A lot of change? What are their other priorities?

Are they very busy? Is this project/programme a distraction?

You personally, and towards other key stakeholders

Assess their support on a scale of 1 to 10

Note that early on you may not know everything you need to know

Support

Infl

uen

ce Stakeholder A

Stakeholder B

Stakeholder C Stakeholder F

Stakeholder E

Stakeholder D

Low

High

High

Low

AMBER

Support

Infl

uen

ce

Low

High

High

Low

RED GREEN

GREEN

AMBER

The stakeholder plan is a plan to obtain the

Stakeholder requirements, and to achieve

other stakeholder-related objectives

It describes all organised interaction with them

It is not just a plan to “communicate and engage”

with them, or “get their requirements”

You must also understand them, persuade them

and change their behaviour

Why?

For example

If an important Executive will have significant impact on the

programme being a success, but you know that they are inclined

against the programme

Then your plan needs to either persuade them to change their mind – or to

work round the problem of their negativity

Or if you require the QA Manager to carry out testing and quality audit

quickly and according to your schedule, and you know that that team is

overloaded by other projects/programmes

Then you need a plan to somehow get ahead of the queue! Which means

persuading them to support your project

The job of project/programme manager is all about influencing,

persuading, negotiating and changing attitudes and behaviour

It’s about reality

It’s not just Gantt charts, it’s social psychology too!

With stakeholder groups - think like an

Advertiser

Design messages to address feelings

Use their channels to connect (no more project newsletters)

Measure reach, opinion, recall, level of

engagement, satisfaction, behaviours

Ask yourself, what would a marketing

person do?

If you don’t know, get one on your

programme!


With individual stakeholders – think like a

Salesperson

Focus on persuasion and changing behaviours, not

just ‘engagement’

Use sales techniques to manage their decision-

making process

What do they want? What are their real objectives and

objections?

What are the benefits? What is their decision making

process? Can you influence it?

Close them on important decisions

Use persuasion techniques to motivate and

negotiate with them

Social proof, scarcity, investment rationalisation,

comparisons, etc.

Support

Infl

uen

ce Stakeholder A

Stakeholder B

Stakeholder C Stakeholder F

Stakeholder E

Stakeholder D

Low

High

High

Low

Stakeholder E1

Stakeholder E2

Desired change

Stakeholder influences

Stakeholder objectives: support-influence map


Stakeholder Stakeholder

requirements

Example objectives Plan to include..

Sponsor A • Requirement

• Requirement

• Sustain high support

• Use +ive influence

Weekly meeting, personalised report

focussed on their high value outcomes

Power Users • Requirement

• Requirement

• Build enthusiasm

• User them to influence

general users

Fit early visibility around their

schedule, build identification with

project, open access to the team,

regular satisfaction/attitude survey

Sponsor B • Requirement

• Requirement

• Less antagonism

Use Sponsor A to influence them, find

way to make them feel more

comfortable

Quality Team

Manager

• Requirement

• Requirement

• Get through their QA and test

process quickly

Understand the QA workload, build

bridges with competing PMs and try to

help QA schedule. Sell the project’s

true value

Project Team • Requirement

• Requirement

• Keep them focussed on

delivery

Create enjoyable working

environment, help with individual

career objectives

General

Users

• Requirement

• Requirement

• Adoption of new system Drinks/lunch sessions showing new

system, use their intranet for comms

about benefits to them

Working with stakeholders could take up all of your time

Prioritise based on how important they are to the success

of the project/programme

Is the project/programme obtaining your stakeholder

requirements?

Are you achieving your stakeholder objectives?

If not, react

change the plan

Matrix organisations

Functions

Projects

Co-ordination

project

Secondment

project

Functions

Projects

Hybrid

project

Functions

Projects

Weak

Co-ordination

project

Strong

Co-ordination

project

• Functional managers and resource owners

are key stakeholders

• Your project/programme is not their no. 1

priority

• Your success is dependent on them, and on

other projects/programmes within your

organisation

• So you need to understand what they want

from you

• Understand their workload and workload

management processes

• Strong or weak co-ordination?

• You may have to persuade them to

work with you

Each functional team requires managing, and they

don’t co-ordinate between themselves

Project portfolio management should help, but rarely does

Functional managers;

Are often busy, or unresponsive

Control your timescales, not you (but you still get the

blame!)

Break schedule/resource commitments

Control quality, delivery

Sometimes control cost

Manage demand/backlog/work request processes

differently, or sometimes not at all

And, they are human

E.g. Functional managers sometimes favour specific projects

Functional managers perspective

You have to schedule work from multiple Projects, who

don’t co-ordinate

Project managers keep changing their schedules &

requirements, with too little advanced notice

Project managers don’t appreciate your problems &

priorities, they just demand work to be done without

seeing the bigger picture

Some projects are just more interesting/strategic/easy

than others

Good SHM means understanding their

perspective, and helping them understand yours

Appreciating the real pressures on them

It also means trying to change it!

Team members perspective

Most team members have two managers, who have different

objectives

Organisation perspective

It is hard to optimise all resources, functions, projects and

programmes effectively because of;

Immature processes

Inadequate PPM tools

Lack of interdepartmental and interpersonal co-operation

All these become problems for the PM!

Understand their work request and demand

management process

Make sure you have clarity on how they do business

Negotiate the conditions under which they will complete the work

for you

Explain your issues to them, for example other dependencies and

other things that might mean you changing details of the work

request

Understand their workload

Specifically, which other projects/programmes may cause a

capacity/schedule issue for them (i.e. for you)

You may need to include those PMs as stakeholders!

Understand their real issues and what motivates

them

Use this to sell to them!

Catalogue

Requirements

Understand

Plan

Do

Check


Include functional managers,

resource owners, other

project/programme managers

What are their issues &

pressures? How can you

make their role easier? What

is their request and workload

management process? Can

you help optimise the Matrix?

Clarify and document

exactly what you need from

them, be the most specific

and easy to satisfy

Link your schedule with

resource and work

requests, provide early

notice of change

Prioritise what you

need, and prioritise

what they need

Hold them to account

and if it’s not

happening, negotiate or

escalate

Stakeholder

management is

organised human

interaction

Win one of Five free copies

of my book – take the Big

Change Survey


Connect with me on

LinkedIn

https://uk.linkedin.com/in/jakeholloway

Questions?



stakeholder management in a matrix organisation - 25th august 2015

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