Communications

An essential concern in project management is to identify stakeholders and engage them in the project. Identifying stakeholders is not easy, and you have to put effort into it. Don’t forget to get help from the team members when identifying stakeholders, and do it in a way that works as a team-building activity as well (as also mentioned in the previous principle).

As for the stakeholders you’ve identified, you need to frequently communicate with them and actively ask for their input. The format of communication depends on the type of stakeholder, and you should have various ways tailored to each group. An extreme example I can think of is from many years ago, when someone started constructing a low-cost apartment building and pre-sold it to low-income people. It was a scam – there were only 500 apartments, and they were pre-sold to thousands of people! The actual building that was under construction was only a show building as well, with no intention of finishing it. The buyers only realized the scam when the scammer ran away. Naturally, they were very angry at losing most of their savings, and they started protesting. Soon, the government got involved and decided to get a contractor and fund a project to build apartments for everyone who had pre-bought them.

A company I was working with got the project. My first concern was how to work with thousands of angry stakeholders! It doesn’t matter how well we would have worked – the project was already too late for them, and there was always the chance that they would accuse us of being another scam outfit, even though we were a reputable company working under the supervision of the judicial system in that project. So, we built a website where buyers could look up their apartment and see its up-to-date progress. There was also a room at the entrance with someone there to provide buyers who came over or called with information, because some of them weren’t comfortable using the Internet. And finally, there were open site visits once a month.

Working well is not enough; let others know how well you work!