Managing stakeholders is a critical component when it comes to PMO, perhaps the most critical. While you may have some ‘challengers’, it is important to spend some of your time reinforcing the relationships with the high influence, high power advocates. You want to ensure that they are fully aligned with the PMO. This is more likely if they have a clear understanding of your objectives, direction, and possible issues. Their position usually means they can provide a higher level of support and protection.
Having stakeholders aligned means that they will be able to help other stakeholders who are the so-called ‘challengers’. Having regular sessions to update the key advocates so they are fully aware of the current status would always be a good idea. Most importantly, it also reduces the risk that fellow stakeholders are caught “off guard” in a meeting with their peers. The last thing you want to do is leave your stakeholders exposed.
Managing the ‘challengers’
Managing those ‘challengers’ can take a lot of valuable time and effort, more than you normally anticipate. Therefore, before doing so, evaluate if it’s really necessary to invest the time. Focus on those who are absolutely required to allow the PMO or project to proceed, this includes those who have the power to stop them. Once you’ve identified the stakeholders who need more active management, spend time trying to understand why they’re identified as the “challengers”. What are the reasons for their challenge? Once you have a good understanding of those issues, devise a strategy of how the concerns can be addressed and resolved.
Review the neutrals
Apart from investing time with challenging stakeholders, start looking for those who are more neutral, too. Are there any that have high power, high influence it would be beneficial to make the effort to move them to be ‘advocates’? Moving stakeholders from ‘neutral’ to ‘advocate’ would be much easier than focusing on the ‘challengers’. This presents a much easier path to get more influential stakeholders into the ‘advocate’ camp that can help reduce the impact of remaining ‘challengers’. But this is no easy process, converting a stakeholder from ‘neutral’ can be tricky. As they normally either have no opinion or interest either way. Therefore, they don’t really care about the outcome as it provides them with no direct benefit to their own objectives and agenda. The key to convincing and converting stakeholders is to show them how they could potentially benefit. Build a case in which the PMO will help them, this will increase the chances of them leaving the ‘neutrals camp’. Position the benefit relevant to their own goals so it is worth investing time.
Expert PMO services
We understand that stakeholder management is an ongoing task. Investing time is something that can really make a big difference to the success of your PMO or project. With years of experience, our consultants have learned this over time, and know how to manage the process. Contact us today via our contact form, let’s build your team.
