What risks do you face with poor stakeholder management in IT projects?
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Poor stakeholder management can derail your IT projects and damage your reputation. Stakeholders are the people who have an interest or influence in your project, such as customers, users, sponsors, executives, team members, vendors, and regulators. Managing them effectively means identifying their needs, expectations, and concerns, communicating with them regularly and clearly, and involving them in decision making and feedback. If you neglect or mishandle your stakeholder management, you may face several risks, such as:
Scope creep is when your project scope changes or expands beyond the original plan, often due to unclear or changing requirements, unrealistic expectations, or conflicting priorities. Scope creep can increase your costs, time, and complexity, and reduce your quality and value. To avoid scope creep, you need to define and document your project scope clearly, align it with your stakeholders' goals and expectations, and control any changes through a formal process.
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Antony Panteli
Chief Technologist | Advisory Practice Leader
Robust governance provides a structured approach to decision-making and change management. Establish a clear governance framework at the outset of the project or engagement: 1. Clearly Define the Scope: Document detailed scope, including specific deliverables, timelines, and boundaries. 2. Align with Stakeholder Objectives: Ensure the project scope aligns with the goals and expectations of all stakeholders. 3. Implement a Formal Change Control Process: Changes to the project scope should undergo a formal review process to assess impact. 4. Conduct Regular Stakeholder Meetings: Frequent stakeholder meetings are essential for discussing progress and maintaining alignment. This approach helps manage expectations and avoid mutating scope.
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Tom Woodhead MCMI FIC
Leading Digital Innovation, Strategic Consultation, and Governance Across Industries and self-proclaimed 'Rad' Professional
When stakeholders aren't properly managed, their changing demands and expectations can certainly lead to scope creep. However, it's crucial to note that not all scope changes are negative if managed effectively. The key is to maintain clear communication and a formal process for scope adjustments.
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Bobby Bahov
Effective stakeholder management in IT projects is a balancing act that's crucial to prevent scope creep. It's akin to setting the ground rules for a game where everyone knows their role and the boundaries. A robust preparation phase is key, where a detailed, well-defined scope acts as the rulebook. This clarity ensures that stakeholders don't inadvertently expand the project's objectives, keeping our 'game' fair and focused. Equally important is agreeing on a process for changes. This structured approach not only maintains project integrity but also respects the resources and timelines, ensuring that the project delivers its intended value without spiraling into chaos.
Resistance and conflict are when your stakeholders oppose or disagree with your project vision, objectives, methods, or outcomes. Resistance and conflict can arise from different perspectives, interests, values, or personalities, and can undermine your project's success and credibility. To prevent or resolve resistance and conflict, you need to build trust and rapport with your stakeholders, understand and address their issues and concerns, and negotiate and compromise when necessary.
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Dr Nedim Dedic
Head of / Coach Enterprise Architecture & IT/Digitalization Leadership Team Member
Involving stakeholders from the beginning, such as during initial definition of the vision for the planned project, might help in avoiding resistance and conflicts in later phases. Such action might help as well getting them as promoters of your project as they feel it is their idea and their vision as well.
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Jane Williams, DM, BCC
Executive Coach | DM/IST Doctorate, Online Teaching
As a proponent of design thinking, I can't imagine starting a project without stakeholder involvement. Without an understanding of why the project is moving forward or who will benefit and how, IT teams are fighting an uphill battle with no support. I've seen so many IT projects fail because the stakeholders did not have skin in the game. It's not enough to include them at the beginning and then check in periodically. Stakeholders must be part of the team and involved through the entire project journey.
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Tom Woodhead MCMI FIC
Leading Digital Innovation, Strategic Consultation, and Governance Across Industries and self-proclaimed 'Rad' Professional
Resistance from stakeholders can stem from a lack of engagement or misunderstandings about the project’s objectives. This can escalate into conflicts that hinder project progress. But remember, conflict and challenge doesn't have to be detrimental, sometimes, it can lead to more robust solutions if managed constructively.
Missed deadlines and budget overruns are when your project fails to meet its schedule and cost targets, often due to poor planning, estimation, or monitoring. Missed deadlines and budget overruns can affect your project's quality and value, and erode your stakeholders' confidence and satisfaction. To avoid missed deadlines and budget overruns, you need to plan and estimate your project realistically, track and report your progress and performance, and manage any risks or issues that may impact your schedule and cost.
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Tom Woodhead MCMI FIC
Leading Digital Innovation, Strategic Consultation, and Governance Across Industries and self-proclaimed 'Rad' Professional
Stakeholder demands can lead to constant changes, causing projects to miss deadlines, go over budget and make their ROI go 'out the window'. However, don't overlook the possibility that some delays and cost increases might be justifiable if they lead to better project outcomes, which in turn could actually improve DROI.
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Bobby Bahov
Without clear and effective communication with stakeholders, it's easy to lose sight of the project's goals and priorities. This misalignment often leads to constant changes in project scope, causing delays and pushing costs higher than expected. Stakeholders, if not managed well, might have unrealistic expectations or change their minds frequently, which can throw a wrench in the works. Effective stakeholder management ensures everyone is on the same page, decisions are made swiftly, and the project stays on track, both in terms of time and budget.
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Andrew Broomhead MBA
IT Director at Panthera Biopartners
Avoiding missed deadlines and budget overruns is crucial for maintaining stakeholder trust. In the SMO sector, we faced such challenges while upgrading our clinical trial systems. The key was realistic planning and proactive risk management. Regular progress tracking and transparent communication were instrumental in keeping the project aligned with its timelines and budget. Similarly, in the eCommerce realm, meticulous estimation and ongoing performance monitoring helped us avoid overruns during a major website overhaul. These experiences underscore the importance of thorough planning, continuous monitoring, and agility in project management.
Low quality and user dissatisfaction are when your project delivers a product or service that does not meet the standards or expectations of your stakeholders, especially your customers and users. Low quality and user dissatisfaction can result from poor design, testing, or implementation, or from lack of feedback or involvement from your stakeholders. To ensure high quality and user satisfaction, you need to define and measure your quality criteria and metrics, test and validate your product or service with your stakeholders, and implement any changes or improvements based on their feedback.
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Jennifer Pierce, PhD
Founder @ Singular XQ | Driving Sustainable Digital Transformation
In your project governance charter, ensure that you include provisions for regular demos and retros. These should be scheduled at frequent intervals—typically weekly or bi-weekly—to foster continuous stakeholder engagement and to facilitate timely feedback. Aim to align and recalibrate according to their sometimes changing expectations. During retrospectives, optimize the feedback process; provide stakeholders with rubrics or matrices that reflect criteria co-developed at the start of each iteration. This co-creation of evaluation criteria empowers stakeholders and ensures that feedback is precise and actionable. While preparing for demo may require additional effort, this investment makes it easier to implement changes early and often.
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Tom Woodhead MCMI FIC
Leading Digital Innovation, Strategic Consultation, and Governance Across Industries and self-proclaimed 'Rad' Professional
Poor stakeholder management often results in products that don't meet user needs or expectations, leading to dissatisfaction and low adoption rates. It's important to differentiate between genuine user needs and stakeholders' wants, which may not always align with the project's goals.
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Andrew Broomhead MBA
IT Director at Panthera Biopartners
Ensuring high quality and user satisfaction is paramount in any IT project. In my role within the SMO industry, we learned the importance of stakeholder feedback during the development of a new data analysis tool. Involving end-users in the design and testing phases led to a more intuitive and effective product. Similarly, in the eCommerce sector, continuous user feedback was key to refining the online shopping experience, directly impacting customer satisfaction and sales. These experiences highlight the critical role of stakeholder involvement and iterative improvements in delivering high-quality outcomes.
Project failure and reputation loss are when your project does not achieve its intended outcomes or benefits, or when it damages your image or credibility as an IT professional or organization. Project failure and reputation loss can occur from any of the above risks, or from other factors such as ethical breaches, legal disputes, or security incidents. To avoid project failure and reputation loss, you need to align your project with your stakeholders' vision and values, deliver your project with integrity and excellence, and learn from your mistakes and successes.
Poor stakeholder management can have serious consequences for your IT projects and your career. By following best practices and principles of stakeholder management, you can reduce these risks and increase your chances of delivering successful IT projects that meet or exceed your stakeholders' expectations and needs.
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Rendani Ramuthaga
Regional IT Head @ Godrej Consumer Products Limited | MBA, SAP, IT Management, AgilePM®
Project failure is definitely one of the key potential events that could occur. Ultimately IT is not deploying new systems for themselves, hence the stakeholder engagement and satisfaction is pivotal in order to avoid failure which in the impacts your reputation and credibility.
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Tom Woodhead MCMI FIC
Leading Digital Innovation, Strategic Consultation, and Governance Across Industries and self-proclaimed 'Rad' Professional
In extreme cases, poor stakeholder management can lead to project failure, which can harm the organisation's reputation. However, it's important to recognise that failure can also provide valuable lessons for future projects - Continuous Improvement (again) and lessons learnt.
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Andrew Broomhead MBA
IT Director at Panthera Biopartners
Avoiding project failure and reputation loss hinges on alignment with stakeholder values and delivering with integrity. In the eCommerce sector, upholding high ethical standards, especially in data security and customer privacy, was key to preserving our reputation. Learning from both successes and setbacks, and maintaining a commitment to excellence, has been pivotal in my career. These experiences underline the significance of integrity, stakeholder alignment, and continuous improvement in safeguarding project success and professional reputation.
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Nkam Okoli
IT Service Delivery I IT Strategy I Service Architect I AWS Solutions Architect
Managing stakeholders is a crucial aspect of any project. However, identifying the right stakeholders and understanding their stake in the project or program is key before engaging and managing outcomes. One of the main challenges that could create value for any organization is scope creep or changing requirements. It needs to be reviewed and managed effectively by having the right people around the table and engaging with them at an early stage. Therefore, it is important to invest time in identifying the key project drivers and stakeholders and start engaging with them early on. This way, it is easier to manage issues more effectively when they arise.