Stansburys Blog

Previously we have looked at the power interest matrix for helping you map and manage your stakeholders.  Now we will turn our attention to an Energy vs. Commitment matrix.   Now you plot the individual stakeholders and stakeholder groups against these criteria – their commitment to you change / programme and their natural energy for communicating and acting – which gives us four groups:

Blockers – to watch as their high energy makes them likely to communicate widely and act vigourously.  Their low commitment to your change affects what they say and do, which makes them likely to land up standing in your way.

Champions - why do we never seem to have enough of these?  The same high energy as your Blockers but committed to your change.  Look after these stakeholders when you find them.

Preachers - are committed to your change and also may talk a lot, but their low energy means they are unlikely to take much other action.

Sleepers - well the hint is in the name.  They are not really committed to your change and don’t have the energy to do anything about it or talk about it.  Unless you know they are because they don’t understand what is coming (and therefore might move to another quadrant when they find out) you don’t need to exert too much time or effort looking after them.

As we often say, the key to using these models is not just doing the analysis, but actually doing something active with the results.  When you find Blockers it may be their low commitment is based on misunderstandings or fear and uncertainty.  We have found many cases where it’s possible to engage these people and turn them into Champions.  If not, it is important to find ways to counteract the communications and actions of these people (particularly if they have positions of power and/or influence).

Stakeholder communication links back effectively to Kotter’s 8 step approach – in particular, step 1 of “creating a sense of urgency” and step 2 “building a powerful guiding coalition”.  And don’t forget, the earlier you start these activities the better!

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There are few things that are more important than understanding and managing your stakeholders.  There is too much to cover in one post – the hint might be in the title – I plan to return to this topic…………  Let me introduce the first tool I recommend to you – the Power-Interest grid:

Stakeholder map - power interest

Map all your stakeholders against this grid.  Basically you are looking at their interest in what you are doing (e.g. project, programme or business change initiative) and their power to influence what you are doing.  According to their position you can start to select the appropriate actions:

Minimal Effort - phew, the people with a low interest in your initiative combined with their low power places few demands on your comms and stakeholder management teams.

Keep Informed – a bit more required here, particularly on the communications front.  These people have a high interest in what you are doing, but relatively low power.  Don’t become complacent though, the combined effect of many disgruntled individuals can grow.  Additionally the opinion of one individual may feed up into more powerful bodies such as unions or the press.

Keep Satisfied – these people need to be kept happy!!  Those with a high level of power but low level of interest need to be kept satisfied.  Bear in mind the level of interest can change rapidly when a stakeholder becomes dis-satisfied.

Manage Closely – here come your “key players” who should be the key focus of your stakeholder management time and effort.  We will come back in to this in other posts, looking at ways to manage these people.  Above all don’t forget to give them a really good listening to from time to time.

Remember this map may not remain static over time. In a long and complex programme a stakeholder might have a low interest initially with increasing interest as the change came closer to them.  Also external changes, scope changes and role changes might all move people from one box to another.

This approach links back effectively to Kotter’s 8 step approach – in particular, step 1 of “creating a sense of urgency” requires effective working with all stakeholders and step 2 “building a powerful guiding coalition” means working effectively with your key players.  And don’t forget, the earlier you start these activities the better!

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Time and again we are asked for opinions on PRINCE2 as a project management methodology.  Therefore we felt we should consistently give our best answer.  In the end we were able to distill (sic) the many words into a simple statement.  You might know the old saying about alcohol, we like to paraphrase it:

“PRINCE2 is like alcohol – a great servant, but a terrible master”

While far from perfect, PRINCE2 is the methodology we (and our clients) most commonly conform to.   It has many supporters and many enemies, but must rank along with PMIBOK (Project Management Institute Body of Knowledge) as one of the two most widely used project management approaches.

It is often blamed for many things the go wrong with project delivery.  However, just as you can’t blame the bottle of whiskey when you fail to put the lid back on after the first or second glass and wake up with a terrible hangover; you shouldn’t blame the text book if you allow yourself to be driven into documentation hell.

We also stop people when they talk of “PRINCE Lite”.  Why “Lite”? PRINCE is designed to flex and adapt to all types and sizes of project.  You don’t call it “Whiskey Lite” when you just pour a couple of glasses!!  Call it PRINCE and apply it properly.  When talk is made of PRINCE Lite it usually means the people feel they are PRINCE servants but the company mandates the use of the methodology.  So PRINCE Lite is the compromise.  PRINCE masters don’t need to compromise, they pick and choose the bits they need.

PRINCE servants can often be identified through use of a Morecambe and Previn log.  Where PRINCE2 is followed slavishly all sorts of products, processes and tools can be found in use in all the wrong places.

When people appear in fear of PRINCE we find it, usually they don’t fully understand it or they have had bad experiences of being a PRINCE servant at some point.  Whenever you encounter this, make sure you become a PRINCE master.

For those unaware of the methodology PRINCE stands for PRojects IN Controlled Environments.  And comes from the British Office of Government Commerce.

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morecambe and previn

We have created and started to use a powerful new tool that we have not found in PRINCE2 or other related methodologies.  At the time we were looking for better ways to address the “best practice paradox”. It’s called the Morecambe and Previn log

You might just care to remind yourself on Youtube of this classic sketch.

The “best practice paradox” is a phenomenon we regularly observe where companies implement best practice approaches and things do not improve and, paradoxically, often become even worse.  A simple technique is to look for implementations that meet the test of “all the right notes being played, but not necessarily in the right order”.  In these cases it is not a matter of throwing everything out and starting all over – but looking for ways to rearrange the notes into the right order.

All too often this is a governance problem and people are focusing so much on the best practice boxes that need to be ticked that they forget to apply common sense.  In other cases systems are implemented with such vigour and rigour that people are unable to apply common sense or lose all motivation to try.  In yet other cases companies have tried to apply every single component of every single process in every single part of the operation and this has led to a complete overload on the staff and a serious outbreak of Morecambe and Previn events.

When there are many entries in the log it is usually a sign to have a close look at the governance and performance management systems that are in place, as the old saying goes: “you get what you inspect, not what you expect”.

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Project cost estimation is one task that should not be under-estimated (sic). In reality the JFDI (“Just Focus and Do It” as the version we will print) approach followed by the SWAG (“Silly Wild-Ass Guess” rather than a Super WAG) estimate tends to result in a rather moveable baseline and a rather disappointed customer and project board.

There are several approaches to improving this and we will visit various of them over time. However one tried and tested approach is that of 3 point estimating (sometimes referrred to as PERT estimating or 3 point planning).

In the land of MS Project each task generally has a single estimate of duration and / or cost (as a result of typical usage btw, not software shortcomings). When using a 3 point approach you apply a “best case” (OPT), “worst case” (PESS) and “most likely”(LIKE) value to each item.

Then apply the following formula:

o EXPECTED = (OPT + (4*LIKE) + PESS) / 6

For example:

3 Point example

In this case we would use 15 days as the estimate for our schedule, but we now have a view of the possible up and down sides. This might look very similar to the estimate of 14 days (assuming you received this answer if you just asked for a single estimate). However you can now start looking at the impact on your schedule if the task did take 25 days rather than 15.

There are some who advocate adjusting what you ask according to the person – e.g. for the optimist / salesperson type start by asking for the best case, and for those glass half empty types start with the worst case. I.e. start them off in their comfort zone, move them to the other end and then finish off by asking for the most likely.

There are then some other fancy things you can do, for example consider using Monte Carlo simulations that can help you achieve a greater level of confidence across a large schedule. Also another trick people use is to revisit the estimates over time. Ideally the uncertainty (as represented by OPT – PESS or 15 days in this case) will decrease over time – i.e. the closer you get to something the clearer the picture. This is not always the case, but should set some alarm bells ringing for the project manager if this number is either staying the same or even going up.

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While there is no universally agreed definition for Projects, Programmes and Portfolios – you can go a long way to improving your management in this area by agreeing and working with a fixed set of terms. We like to use the following:

Portfolio:

• A collection of projects and programmes that are developed and executed across a management domain, and that are consolidated into a single view of overall value and risks,
• About choosing the right things to do,
• You should only have a few (or perhaps only one) per organisation.

Programme:

• A group of related projects managed in a coordinated way to obtain benefits and control not available from managing them individually,
• About outcomes, benefits and business change,
• You will have several per organisation.

Project:

• A temporary endeavour undertaken to create a unique product, service or result,
• About products and deliverables (and doing things right),
• You will have many per organisation.

In fact we see it looking something like this:

P3M Structure

To assist the effective delivery of these you  are well advised to set up a suitable P3MO (Portfolio, Programme and Project Management Office).

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This one rather flies in the face of traditional quality thinking – but really is worth looking into.  Not least is the fact that it mentions failure repeatedly and says nothing of success.  In fact there is a further version of this saying that adds “Fail Cheap” to the other two.

So how does this work?  One hint is given by Ian MacMillan and Alex van Putten in their book Unlocking Opportunities for Growth who write:

“The trick is to engineer into the project early indicators that convert the uncertainty into more certain knowledge, quickly and cheaply, so that you can redirect or shut down with minimum loss. In other words, fail fast, fail cheap, and move on to the real winners.”

One real challenge of striving for quality can be summed up in the phrase “Don’t let the great be the enemy of the good.”  Striving for that high quality product can be very expensive.  Particularly when you are aiming at a Go / No Go decision point.  Ever increasing amounts of time and effort are spent in trying to get everything right for that one big moment.

Not only does this mean that you have spent a lot, but also fixing things that far down the line can be really costly.  Then you have to think about whether you have lost sight of the original goal, the customers have move on or the competition has moved in!!

People involved in Agile approaches to software development will probably be unsurprised by these words, though we do encounter people who talk an Agile approach but still practice a Fail Big, Fail Slow approach.

Thomas Edison made a famous statement when it was suggested that he had failed to develop a storage battery after 10,000 attempts.  He replied by saying that he had not failed, but found 10,000 ways that do not work.  The actual number and words are somewhat in dispute – but you get the picture.

The key thing is to make sure that fear, pride or just your ego don’t stand in the way of failure. I doubt there is anyone enjoying great success who hasn’t had at least one failure along that road. I am, of course, open to correction.

In fact it is rather apt to write about this in a blog: no longer is it is a matter of writing your words, having them proof read, sending them off to the printers etc. etc. all the way until some writing appeared on bookshelves in various shops (if you were lucky) a long way down the road. Now you can blog your words and see them succeed of fail quicker than your copy would have made one journey by first class post!!

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Please keep an eye on this – we will start adding content soon.

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