PRINCE2 Foundation Project Management for Stakeholders
Posted by Marbenz Antonio on December 19, 2022
When starting a new project, PRINCE2 Foundation Project Management usually thinks about how to make project management easier for my stakeholders to understand and how they can adapt my role and responsibilities to help accomplish this goal.
In a dynamic organization where resources are scarce, you may be asked to lead initiatives that are outside of your expertise or areas of strength. How can you maximize your impact and ensure that your stakeholders receive ongoing support in this situation?
What strategies from a methodology like PRINCE2 Foundation Project Management can be useful in this situation?
Documenting and Tracking Events: Writing minutes and organizing information may not be the most thrilling task, but it is crucial for ensuring that actions and decisions are documented, an audit trail is available, and that there is no confusion or ambiguity. In addition to these benefits, keeping everything documented can also help you learn more about the project and get more involved. It can also support the tracking of progress and demonstrate good governance for future reference. Moreover, having detailed records of decisions, events, risks, and issues, as well as lessons learned, can support the ongoing justification of the business by providing a clear record of what has occurred.
Know your Stakeholder: To maximize the impact of stakeholders in a project, it is important to understand their expectations, motivations, and level of engagement. This can help you tailor your role to meet their needs. For example, by understanding their availability and expertise, you can ensure that they are only involved when necessary or when they can add value. This aligns with the communication management approach in PRINCE2, which outlines how often you should communicate with stakeholders, the profile of stakeholders, and the overall communication strategy.
Facilitating and Unblocking Deadlocks: It can be challenging to work outside of your comfort zone, especially when you feel like you don’t have much to contribute. However, there are still things you can do to be effective in these situations. For example, you can focus on ensuring that communication is handled effectively and use your problem-solving skills to adapt to different environments. Communication is often a key factor in the failure of projects, so understanding how your organization or project team operates and how processes are followed can help you analyze each situation from an internal perspective and apply your experience to solve problems.
Deep Dive into the Subject: It may seem obvious, but it is important to understand what the project aims to achieve. You have seen many cases where subject matter experts and senior stakeholders are unaware of or do not understand the scope of the work to be done. This is not necessarily due to incompetence, but rather because ambiguity is a common characteristic of projects. For example, people may come and go from an organization, requirements may be written in a confusing way, or the project may involve a completely new regulation, sanction, or technology. As a project manager, it is your responsibility to gather enough information about the initiative to give your project team the confidence and reassurance they need to deliver. This aligns with the roles and responsibilities and tailoring principles in PRINCE2. When there is significant ambiguity and the project team is not experienced or prepared, a project manager should not restrict responsibilities.
You don’t have to be an expert to help your team achieve its goals and simplify its work.
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