How to Ensure Project Management Success: A Closer Look at Stakeholder Management and Project Processes

Lack of planning or processes is a common factor for project failure.

In fact, in a survey conducted by PMI,[1] lack of planning was termed as the most important reason for project failure.

But that does not mean stakeholder management cannot lead to project failure.

In the figure above, you’ll see that the project failure reasons are attributed to:

• Human resources
• Team members
• Upper level management
• Project manager

These are nothing but stakeholders.

Now the question is, if we can term both lack of processes and lack of stakeholder management as root causes for a project's failure, which one can be responsible for project success?

That’s an interesting question, indeed.

Can we term one of these better or worse than the other when it comes to project success?

Let us look at another survey results of factors that cause a project to succeed.

Felicitas Seah, Member, Project Management Practice, NUS-ISS, writes about findings from the NUS-ISS survey conducted to identify the top reasons for project success.

She writes, “Good planning, diligent execution, timely and appropriate communication, and management of stakeholder expectations are all essential elements in delivering a project to completion.”

As you can see, the major contribution to project success heavily depends on the stakeholders.

Look at the top reasons for project success from this survey. 3 out of the top 4 reasons involve stakeholders!

Look at the second reason from the image: User Involvement. This has contributed to project success almost 88% of the time.

These could be the customer, their customers (end-users) or beta users of the product. These are the ones that tell you what they want in the product.

Involving this section of stakeholders and managing their expectations well is essential for project success.

Similarly, reason #3 in the survey refers to Project Management Expertise.

Apart from the ‘technical’ skills (such as managing cost, schedule, scope etc.), the project manager’s soft skills or people skills are essential for project success.

When you talk about communications, which takes 90% of the project manager's time & effort, you are talking about managing the expectations and needs of the stakeholders.

Further, reason #4 for project success in the survey refers to: Execution (Executive Management Support)

Executive Management is that part of stakeholders that can easily influence a project positively or negatively. Getting their support is critical for the project manager.

PMI, short for Project Management Institute, is the most trusted and prominent authority for project management.

It helps project managers gain necessary skills using its various project management certifications such as PMP, PMI-ACP, Disciplined Agile and more.

It also publishes the most famous project management book on the planet, A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge, or in short, The PMBOK Guide.

You can consider PMI to be an authority when it comes to anything related to project management.

Let us take a look at the Talent Triangle® proposed by PMI.

Stakeholder management refers to the process of managing the needs of and seeking cooperation from the people that are either involved in the project, that can be impacted by the project, or that can impact the outcome of the project. 

Stakeholder management is one of the ‘Ways of Working’ (earlier known as ‘Technical Project Management’) in the Talent Triangle.

This demands the ability to manage projects in terms of different knowledge areas, such as cost management, procurement, scheduling, risk management, and so on.

PMI expects the project manager to have the following skills & competencies under the Technical Project Management/ Ways of working arm of the Talent Triangle:

• Agile practice
• Data gathering and modeling
• Earned value management
• Governance
• Lifecycle management
• Performance management
• Requirements management and traceability
• Risk management
• Schedule management
• Scope management
• Time, budget, cost estimation

Now you can pretty much map each of these into a process.

That is to say, you can have a process to estimate and manage time, budget, and cost.

You can have a process to capture, refine, and manage changes to scope.

You can have a process to identify and manage risks on the project.

The second arm of the Talent Triangle is ‘Power Skills’, which is defined by PMI as follows –

“These interpersonal skills include collaborative leadership, communication, an innovative mindset, for-purpose orientation, and empathy. Ensuring teams have these skills allows them to maintain influence with a variety of stakeholders – a critical component for making change.”

Did you notice the words interpersonal skills, leadership, communication, empathy there?

In fact, PMI defines the following skills & competencies for a project manager:

• Leadership
• Active listening
• Communication
• Adaptability
• Brainstorming
• Coaching and mentoring
• Conflict management
• Emotional intelligence
• Influencing
• Interpersonal skills
• Negotiation
• Problem-solving
• Teamwork

These all heavily involve people, or in other words, Stakeholders.

What does this tell us?

It is quite clear now.

Good set of tailored processes as well as management aspects of stakeholders are required to manage projects successfully.