What is The Background To This Project?

What is The Background To This Project?

Project managers are rarely involved at the very start of a project. By the time you appear on the scene, the project has usually acquired its own history and momentum. To understand it, you need to ask the following questions:

1. What were the business conditions that prompted someone to propose the project in the first place?

2. How was the project presented to management, and how was it evaluated and approved?

3. What were the alternatives to the project that the client considered?

4. What were (and are) the arguments against the project?

5. What is the visibility of the project in the client company or department? How important is it seen to be?

6. What are the attitudes toward the project? Specifically:

Is it welcomed as desirable, accepted as necessary, or condemned as wrongheaded?

Is it regarded as easy, difficult, or impossible?

Is it viewed with enthusiasm, resignation, or trepidation?

With the answers to these questions, you are equipped to become an advocate: to sell the project to the users and to create a positive expectation for it. You can now build an atmosphere that will make it easier to gain cooperation, to resolve issues, and to help the client achieve the expected benefits. Until these questions are answered, you are a passenger, unable to influence, much less dictate, the direction of the project.

Bad Attitudes

One of the consequences of asking about the background of the project is that you could find out things you would rather not know. For example, you may discover that few people support the project, that few think it will (or should) succeed, and that its failure would be widely regarded as a sign that all is right with the world. You have a problem.

First, you need to determine whether or not this attitude is deserved. Is this project truly a bad idea, or are you witnessing a power struggle between factions? From a neutral point of viewwhich may be difficult to maintain but is part of your jobin order for the project to be a bad idea, it must be either unjustified or infeasible. Nothing else qualifies, and any other opposition arises from internal strife.

If, upon examination, you conclude that the project is unjustified or infeasible, then, as project manager, it is your responsibility to point out to the client that the detractors are correct and the project should not or cannot be done. If the client insists on proceeding, then you are faced with managing either an unjustified project (see the preceding section) or one that probably cannot succeed for technical reasons (see "Managing Risks" in Chapter 5).

If, on the other hand, the project is both justified and feasible, then the opposition to it is organizational. You need to find out why.

People typically oppose a new system because:

They see it as arising from another department's requirements without reference to theirs.

They view it as being imposed on them.

They will have to change long-standing, comfortable work habits.

They suspect that it is a management stratagem to upset a labor relations balance.

They suspect that it will not work and that its failure will be blamed on them.

They recognize that developing and implementing it will require unwelcome extra effort from them.

They suspect (and this is what frightens them most) that it will result in layoffs.

hat can you do to overcome these and similar attitudes?

First, ask whether or not they are your concern. If the opposition to the project comes from people who are not members of either the project team or the client team, then dealing with these attitudes is an implementation issue that belongs to the client groups that will be rolling the system out. It is not your responsibility. This may seem evasive, but, unless you are the vice president of human resources, it is not your job to manage corporate relations. When you prepare the implementation plan, you must insist that these attitudes be recognized and that actions be developed to deal with them, but they cannot be allowed to intrude on the conduct of the project itself.

On the other hand, dealing with opposition is very much your responsibility if the people who oppose the project are part of it. An extreme case occurs when some of the people you rely on to make the project succeed will lose their jobs when it does. In such cases, resolving their negative attitudes is one of your biggest concerns.

How you deal with this problem is situational, but here are some suggestions:

1. Evaluate whether or not the opposition is reasonable. For example, fears of layoffs are reasonable; anger at another department is not. (Keep in mind the difference between reasonable and justified attitudes. Negativity may be justified by past offenses, but it is not reasonable to withhold services because of them.)

2. If the opposition is unreasonable, make that opinion and your resolve to conduct a successful project clear to everyone. You may need to have heart-to-heart talks with a few of the team members, and, in extreme cases, you may need to replace those who are particularly vehement (see "Building the Team" in Chapter 5). Your goal is to create a cohesive team despite the attitudes.

3. If the opposition is reasonable, you need to do whatever you can to mitigate the problem that creates it. For example, if people will be laid off when the project is finished, ask the client to develop a transition plan to help them find new jobs. Your motive here is not compassion, but recognition that unless the problem is resolved, your project will be plagued with low morale, passive noncooperation, and outright confrontation, and it will probably fail.

Of course, the major point is that unless you take the time to explore the project's background, you will be happily unaware of the poison that infects itand unable to take any actions to create a successful project and a positive experience for all of its participants.

What If?

You Are Discouraged From "Wasting Time" On The Background.

If you do not understand the background, you are vulnerable to project critics and you risk making serious misjudgments that not only endanger the project but compromise your ability to lead it.

Actions

Arrange to go for lunchseparatelywith two or three people who have been involved from the start. Asking questions over lunch is not seen to be as obtrusive as an interview.

Pose questions that relate to specific incidents or people. For example, "Fred does not seem enthusiastic about this project," or "Why is the finance department not represented on the steering committee?"

If you encounter a background issue that could seriously hinder the project, raise it with the client in two contexts: as an issue that needs to be resolved, and as an example of the problems that can occur when you are discouraged from doing your job.

You Get Conflicting Background Information.

If the background information you get is not consistentfor example, Fred tells you that Mary is bitterly opposed to the project but George says that she is one of its strongest advocatesyou do not have information, you have rumor. The risk is that you will make inappropriate, perhaps dangerous, decisions.

Actions

Treat the inconsistency as a valuable source of information. In the above example, you have probably learned more about Fred's and George's attitude toward Mary than you have about her attitude toward the project.

Approach the object of the inconsistencyin this case, Marydirectly for clarification. Do not tell her what Fred or George reported, but ask a more general question, such as, "I understand that you have some concerns about this project."

You Find Out That Your Project is The Object Of a Power Stuggle or Interdepartmental Rivalry.

If two or more departments have conflicting opinions of your project's purpose, scope, or justification, you will find it extremely hard to manage, and no matter what you do, you will have opponents.

Actions

Identify the client department and managers. This may seem simple, but on many projects, the lines of responsibility are fuzzy. For example, an operations director may insist that the project is the responsibility of operations, since that is the department that must implement it, while the finance director is claiming ownership because the finance department is paying for it.

Your job is to identify a single client: the department and the manager who own the project and who will be responsible for all decisions.

If project ownership is not clear, insist that the client organization pick a project owner. This demand will probably trigger internal machinations within the client organization, but as long as you have made your demands clear, you will probably end up with a project owner.

If the client organization does not select a clear project owner or tells you that it is your job to work things out between departments, pick one yourself and make it clear to the client organization that you must have a single client department. Identify which department you picked and why you picked it. If the client organization has named a client project manager or weighted the steering committee heavily toward one department, your choice will be clear.

In subsequent conversations, when members of another department attempt to get you to make certain decisions or take specific actions, simply say that you are willing to take the request to the client department, but that you cannot comply without the client's approval.