Is sponsership and stakeholder management success? - Ruth Sacks

Involvement of key stakeholders from the outset is critical to project success, said Ruth Sacks, Turner & Townsend.

In her talk, 'How blank is the paper?', Ruth said the involvment process should start at the bidding stage and lead to questions being asked of why the project is being designed and what solutions are stakeholders/sponsors looking for.

"People in projects are all different. The key is to try and unpick who people are and develop relations to drive project through to success, " she said.

Getting close to key stakeholders is one way of holding the project together. But also pays to be aware of different tensions between organistations and needs of other stakeholders.

This requires a firm understanding of inside/outside influences and things like previous experience, budgetary constraints, exisiting consultants and experience of pm.

Feedback from delegates highlighted a lack of understanding by key stakeholders and sponsors, which ultimatley threatened the ability to deliver a project successfully. In answer to the issue, it was suggested that key players should be mentored and educated in order to fill the "vacuum below sponsor level".

Is sponsorship and stakeholder management success? - Graham Kennedy

Managing key stakeholders and sponsors is critical to project success. Based on premise that 80% of changes fail to deliver planned benefits, Graham Kennedy, ICT Managed Services, divided reasons for failure into three distinct categories.

First: executive ownership. He said that this can be ineffective if business rationale/direction not clear. Result can be a "project solution looking for a problem" or "riding a dead horse" and knowing when to get off. Sponsor needs to be expert pulling things together otherwise project will esculate out of control.

Second: misalignment. A lack of relevance to the organsiation creates gap between current performance and what it's trying to achieve. Projects exist to solve or bridge the gap. To do this need to be clear what achieve at strategic level. Alignment between issues and objectives brings measurable benefits to organisation.

Third: stakeholder management. "A reformer has enemies who all profit from the old order" - Machiavelli. Apt quote for managing stakholders. Need to identify enemies and potential defenders. Analyse motivation and idenfity "tools and levers to encourage stakeholder support".

Is executive sponsor support critical to project success? Yes 100%.

Is project alignment with organisation's strategy critical to success? Yes 100%.

Is stakeholder management critical to project success? Yes 100%.

Project manager as diplomat - Leon Lau

Problems of dealing with variety of stakeholders to deliver project success. Leon Lau gave example of working in NHS. Care Pathway redesign looking at patient journey from GP referral to surgery. "No one chain of command, lots of different organisations but not working together." Need to engage all stakeholders: patients, GPs, PCT management, hospital clinicians, hospital nursing staff, hospital management. "Large number of stakeholders reside in silos." Diplomatic skills to bring different groups together. Ideal number of stakeholders at meeting 4-5. Good idea to have project champions to cut numbers.

Can project sponsors be managed?

Audience asked to rate their own organisatrions in terms of project sponsorship, according to a set of questions from the APM publication - Directing Change - A guide to governance of project management.

How good is project sponsorship n your organisation?
Good 8% Satisfactory 20% Unsatisfactory 48% Poor 24%

Compared with the feedback received at the APM/IoD conference on Governance on 1st April:
Good 6% Satisfactory 32% Unsatisfactory 46% Poor 16%

Can project sponsors be managed?

Where are your project sponsors? They’re not here and that’s part of the problem.
So how do you management upwards in the absence of your sponsor.

Example: Public sector organisation.
• Assess org. chart and core team.
• Rank sponsors – most cooperative to least. Get assistance by enlisting the most supportive to help bring the others on board.
• That helps build momentum.
• Educate those new to sponsorship, explain their roles, enabling them to fulfil their roles.

Summary
• Assess the current situation, assess the stakeholders
• Enlist a guiding coalition, get some supporters
• Articulate needs, in language appropriate for your audience.
• Educate upwards
• Use passion, persistence and patience

Question 1
Project sponsors can be managed
Strongly agree 18% Agree 60% Disagree 20% Disagree strongly 2%

Project success through stakeholder management - rail defect system - Barry Chesterman, Network Rail

Overview of Network Rail's Rail Defects System (RDS) programme. Key issues safety and reliability. Barry said when took over NR's reputation in turmoil, now in "safe hands". Key challenges to capture rail defect information and put onto one system. This involved bringing 22 different contractors each with own reporting system. No intra-system integration i.e. people not talking to each other. Key to RDS success engage all different stakeholders. Design led by end-user 18 demos of prototype models. "Same message to all stakeholders." Feedback invaluable to success. Deployment of RDS 8 out of 9 routes now live. 50% legacy systems decommissioned. 1050/1300 users trained. Improvements: systems delivered half the budget, 4x scope, high level of acceptance.

Is acceptance maximised when stakeholders are an integral part of transformation? 100% yes.

Stakeholder management is important in all sectors, but some sectors require more stakeholder management effort. Agree 95%. Disagree 5%.