Gaining Support for Your Project

Leslie Martinich

Project managers are often surprised when others do not recognize their ideas as “great.” Someone who has worked hard to solve a technical problem arrives at a solution, announces the “great idea,” and encounters lack of enthusiasm at best, or resistance or naysaying at worst.

How can project managers avoid such situations and set up their projects for support and success? Remember that not everyone is as smart as the person who solved the technical problem. Others may need education about the issue. Remember to test your assumptions. Do others share the same objectives? Perhaps an engineer worked hard to solve a problem that others in the organization assign a low priority to. Perhaps some fundamental assumptions have changed, rendering this particular problem irrelevant.

Whether other stakeholders need education or your goals need realignment with the organization’s goals, a conscious effort to gain support for your projects and ideas can help.

Project managers are rarely told that part of their job is to gain the support of others for their projects. And their failure to gain such support can easily lead to project failure. We’ll consider what is involved in gaining support for a project, why it is important and how to do it. And, as a side note, consider that this same thoughtful approach works well in your personal relationships, too.

What’s Involved in Gaining Support

Gaining support has two aspects: acquiring the emotional or psychological commitment from all stakeholders, and acquiring the financial resources necessary to complete your project.

It is easy to stay focused on your current project, managing the schedule and budget, prioritizing and resolving technical issues, and finding the right resources. And in staying “heads down,” project managers sometimes overlook the other stakeholders. Who are they? Do they include the CEO of your firm, various vice presidents and directors, managers of technical support, quality assurance, documentation, training, manufacturing, IT, marketing, and sales, other project managers, customers, end users, suppliers and liaisons to standards bodies such as IEEE?

When you have the commitment of these stakeholders, acquiring the financial resources will be considerably easier.

Why Gaining Support is Important

You might think that getting commitment from all these stakeholders is outside the job description for project managers. Perhaps you think that it is the job of your boss or the product manager. Successfully completing your project, however, is clearly within your job description. And very often, having the support of these stakeholders is essential to the successful completion of your project.

Very often technology projects involve or will result in change. Resistance to change can jeopardize your project’s chances for success.

In addition, the process of acquiring support and the habits associated with a communication plan will help you to learn when you need a course correction. In listening to others, you will have ample opportunity to discern when your project or ideas are not aligned with the organization’s goals. The process of gaining support provides you with important information.

How to Gain Support for your Project

Gaining support for your project involves three steps: first, identify all stakeholders; second, plan your communication approach with each stakeholder; and, third, execute your plan.

Step 1. Identify your audience. Consider members of the executive team, peers, individual contributors, engineers, other project managers, testers, trainers, documentation writers, systems engineers, support staff, customers, end users, sales and marketing. Often an outsider, such as a facilitator, can help you to identify stakeholders you might otherwise omit.

Step 2. Construct a matrix. Use the audience names across the top as column headings. For each person in your audience, consider a broad variety of preferences and issues, including

· Change. How does this project represent a change to this person?

· Goals. What are this person’s goals and objectives?

· Fears. What fears does this project present for this person?

· Risks. What risks does this project pose for this person?

· Communication preference. Does this person want the big picture, face- to-face meetings? Or does this person prefer lots of data and time to mull it over?

· Needs. What are your needs with regard to this person? Do you need cooperation, resources, commitment, or an understanding of how this project fits into this person’s plans for the company?

· Shared interests. What areas of common interest do you share with this person? Research shows that simply citing mutual interests at the beginning of a discussion increases the likelihood of agreement.

· Format. What format will your communication take: weekly meetings, training classes, quarterly presentations, focus groups?

· Feedback. How will you get feedback from this person? Use the feedback to correct your course of action.

You do not need to fill in every cell of your matrix, but the more information you have up front, the better planning you’ll be able to do. As you learn more from each individual, you’ll be able to fill in more information.

Imagine that you are the project manager in charge of a new project to create a system that will monitor and optimize routing for delivery and repair truck drivers. Imagine further that you are working closely with Pinocchio Pizza, which has agreed to test your systems. Your system will include a GPS device installed in the pizza delivery trucks and a routing console for the dispatcher.

Figure 1 shows an example of the matrix that you construct.

Constructing a communications plan can be a team activity. With your team, you’ll have a greater diversity of insights into who needs to be included and what their preferences are. In many cases, you might want to ask your audience how best to work with them. It is useful to incorporate a variety of communication methods into your plan.

As you gain insight into what is important to each individual, you will be able to determine the most appropriate form of communication, whether it is a meeting, weekly email, a focus group or a training program.

Step 3. Execute your plan. Hold your meetings, send your email, and listen for the feedback that will help you to take corrective action in order to keep your project aligned with corporate goals.

You can adapt this communication plan to fit your needs, and you may want to incorporate back-up communication channels such as a web site where stakeholders can obtain information about your project or submit comments, questions, and feature and enhancement requests.

In communicating with each member of your audience, consider their goals, fears and communication preferences. Use your shared interests up front to solidify your relationship. In the process of getting feedback, explain your reasoning, plans and project, and ask others if you have missed anything or if they have a different view.

Audience	CEO	Manager of Project B	End User	Sales Person	Customer
Change	New product puts us into a higher end business	Project B will have to share some resources	Routing software limits the driver's autonomy on the delivery route	Will need to learn a new technology	Switch from a manual process to an automated system
Goals	Market leader in constraint-based routing	Continued support for B	autonomy	Maximize commissions	Efficiency
Fears	The project may take too long or cost too much.	Project B may lose some of its glory	Big brother		Reduced employee satisfaction
Risks	If this project fails, the company will have a loss for the year.	Project B’s success is at risk if too many resources are shared.		Trying to sell a new product might delay commission checks
Communication preference	Lots of data. Time to think.	Big picture, verbal		Lots of data.
Needs	Understanding of how this project fits into the company's long-term strategy. Funding for development. Help to meet with customers.	Cooperative use of limited lab resources	Buy in. Understanding of what decisions the end user makes during the course of work.	Commitment to sell this product. Understanding of what the customers want.	Understanding of how their manual processes work so that we can make the automated system effective for their needs.
Shared interests	Want organization to succeed.	Have worked together for seven years.
Format and Feedback Mode	Ask for quarterly review of plans	Go out to lunch weekly	Focus Group, Usability Study	Focus Group; Quarterly Presentation and Question Session	Focus Group

Figure 1: Communications plan for routing optimization system.