Do detailed engineered requirements = satisfied stakeholders? 

No, not always :( 

Our culture tends to be “too busy” and generally people want to stick with what they know, avoid change and be open to new learnings only if their capacity allows for it and it involves a day off at some off-site location. 

People generally want education in a perfect world, but there is never a perfect time when all is calm, you are caught up and stress-free from changes.

Real world is that education must be integrated into the project and generally at the project/work site.
Stakeholders can be illogical based on their lack of understanding and the justifications they create. Thus best laid plans will not be applicable and this is part of project risk - especially when working with advanced technologies or innovations.

You may have a proven, best practice, optimized approach and technology, however, without buy-in, understanding and proper tracking of education provided, you will not have success.

This is why a good project management plan includes formal tasks that focus on buy-in through education.  

These tasks are identified early on based on risks and inserted into the project management plan.  Based on life cycle stages of a project, it must be reminded that education comes in a multitude of forms.

Examples tools to be inserted into the PM plan include:

1) Concept Stage - education includes: coffee, lunch, phone calls, emails, electronic presentations (generally in a slide based/ppt type of software), signage, bulletin boards, announcements, feedback tools, forums, social events (promote trust & engagement), checklists, questionnaires, minutes

2) Planning Stage – education includes: reports, presentations with multiple types of software (spreadsheets, graphs, mind-maps, diagrams, videos, etc), referenced independent documents, webinars, video conference calls, meetings with white board (open) themed agendas, workshops, conferences, trade shows, tours, alliance formation of alliances (with other businesses, academics, governments, associations), timeline/milestone charts, signature tracking (sign-offs to promote focus, priority, attendance and

 attention), minutes

3) Executing – education includes: formal class room training, online training, mentorship, coaching, customized professional development program (aligned with operations), revisiting of education that was provided in Planning stage (when possible, reuse and repeat based on complexity/uniqueness of the project and level of capability/capacity of the stakeholders), education packages (customized/structured levels of information, high level, medium level, details and ability to drill down or scale up rapidly), certifications, minutes

4) Closing – lessons learned (customized to the type of project and the plans of how the project learnings become integrated into future projects/operations), minutes

Couple good links on stakeholder buy-in (and the focus on communication) include:

http://smallbusiness.chron.com/stakeholder-buy-project-51429.html

http://michcommunication.com/stakeholder-engagement-is-more-than-getting-buy-in/

3 things that greatly impact how well your team performs include:

1. Belonging

2. Significance

3. Boundaries

Then have a formal plan (include within the project plan and manage it like a deliverable) to help integrate those three things to form the basis of your Project Culture. Finally, overlay that culture to continuously be Goal Oriented.

1. Belonging 

Can be described as knowing where they fit within the team and also organization.  Both are critical and will overlap, so one easy way to understand if there is an issue is to ask the question out-right…. “how are you feeling in terms of comfort and security with your overall position within the project and the company”.  If this is not positive, you also need to have a strategy to address it as best you can (since likely you will not have the time or the resources available – so be creative and let them know you will do your best)

Other aspects of belonging include understanding how each team member is connected to others, every person wants to fit in and have positive interactions and attention and this leads to trust, which leads to strong communication/interaction and thus productivity & performance.

2. Significance 

Can be described as the ability to have each stakeholder understand how their capabilities are aligned with the project demands.  How can the project leadership team enable all team members to make a difference in the project through meaningful contributions – providing a sense of personal power.  All humans are hard-wired with a need for personal power and growth of their internal confidence that leads to independence and essentially self-acutalization.  No person wants to be micro-managed and far too often a manager falls into the trap of:

- Tell a person what to do

- Tell then show a person how to do it

- Monitor the person while they are doing it and constantly get involved

- Approve/Reject/Criticize then take over near the end

3. Boundaries 

Every project has a plan. Although we want each team member to have self-independence and empowerment, they must be working together and following the same path.  We must allow small mistakes to occur and learn from and things will never be perfect and must have paths and culture for optimization. Too often companies establish high levels rules, policies and excessive administration – which turns employees into robots. Creativity and innovation are depleted, self pride and accountability become minimized and true value from the employee is lost. It is a fine balance as to when do you micro-manage and when do you provide freedom to achieve work that you can see was your own and take ownership, pride and self-learnings from. 

Tools to enable the 3 parameters include:

Belonging – org chart (diagrams for multiple levels), roles and responsibilities (customized for each project), RAM (Responsibility and Assignment Matrix), Communication Plan (swim lanes as to who to go to for what and when), team building events

Significance –  Transparency on Role Accountability and the assigned person’s Capability (this is key and can leverage concepts fro Requisite Organizational Design or Elliott Jaques methodologies), check point reviews (what has been completed – celebrate milestones), recognition culture (do not need to have tangible awards/gifts we all have a job to do and positive recognition culture can be instilled into a team without a physical cost to the project), alignment of project achievements with personal learning or growth plans

Boundaries – Sponsor’s Vision charter, guidelines, codes of conduct, plans, objectives, Constraints (money, time, scope, quality, HR), plans, scope statements, requisite organizational design models, work capability models, trust, measurement and monitoring systems, stop or red/yellow/green or go/no-go systems, informal reporting systems (simple/fast social media style updates), trust

Goal Oriented

All of this then must be combined under a project culture that is Goal Oriented, tools that can help with that include:  org design clarity (charts/structure), communication and accountability swim lanes, milestone visuals, bar charts (gannt charts), graphs, spreadsheets, KPIs, CSFs, objectives, deliverables (ideally you can have both tangible, concrete goals but do not forget to include the intangible, subjective goals) and also the excerpts from specific documents such as:  Concept, Proposal, Charter, Scope Statement, Project Plan, etc.

Every team needs a strong, strategic platform (foundation) to stand on.

Three things to establish within your team environment in order to make collaboration and risk management faster, easier and more successful, includes:

1. Belonging
2. Significance
3. Boundaries

1) Belonging 
This can be described as knowing where they fit within the team and also the organization.  Both are critical and will overlap, so one easy way to understand if there is an issue is to stop and ask the simple question …. “how are you feeling in terms of comfort for your position within the company”.  If that is not addressed you must have a strategy to address it as best you can (likely there is a shortage of resources – so be creative J)

Other aspects of belonging include understanding how everyone is connected to others, every person wants to fit and have positive interactions and trust, which leads to strong communication, productivity and performance.  A great mentor once told me, do you understand how you "fit the click".  

2) Significance 
This can be described as the ability to have every single person understand how their capabilities are aligned with work demands.  How can leadership enable all team members to make a difference in the project through meaningful contributions – delivering a sense of personal power.  All humans are hard-wired with a need for personal power which leads to growth of confidence that leads to independence and self-actualization.  No person wants to be micro-managed.

However, do not get caught int he trap, since far too often a manager will create robots within the project team, and the team also starts to want to act this way, and thus an approach starts to form such as:

1. Manager tells the employee what to do
2. Manager tells how to do it
3. Manager monitors the work and checks and gets involved
4. Manager has to approve continuously

3) Boundaries

A plan must exist that sets the boundaries of the work to be completed. Every project must have a plan, Although we want each team member to have self-independence and empowerment, they must be working together and be on the same journey. Multiple paths could be taken but they are all climbing the same mountain. Too often companies establish high levels rules, policies and excessive administration – which turns employees into robots.  Thus, it is a fine balance as to when do you micro-manage and when do you provide freedom to achieve the work and put your own mark on it. This is more of an art than a science and must align with the corporate values, vision and culture. 

Tools

To help enable the three parameters listed above, tools that can be utilized include:

• Belonging – org chart (diagrams for multiple levels), roles and responsibilities (customized for each project), RAM (Responsibility and Assignment Matrix), Communication Plan (swim lanes as to who to go to for what and when), team building events
• Significance –  Transparency on Role Accountability and the assigned person’s Capability (this is key and can leverage concepts fro Requisite Organizational Design or Elliott Jaques methodologies), check point reviews (what has been completed – celebrate milestones), recognition culture (do not need to have tangible awards/gifts we all have a job to do and positive recognition culture can be instilled into a team without a physical cost to the project), alignment of project achievements with personal learning or growth plans
• Boundaries – Sponsor’s Vision charter, guidelines, codes of conduct, plans, objectives, Constraints (money, time, scope, quality, HR)
• Priorities - always know AND understand the expecations and the level of importance (priorities) for your work and then also the work that is to be done by your organization
• Hiring - don't hire by the resume only, know and understand the personality, they need to fit, it will be a great benefit and win-win for both the person and the company
• Overall: ensure the Project Team has established a Goal Oriented Culture (environment, theme, feel) that works collaboratively towards achieving measurable goals. Tools to help with goal management include:  strategies, KPIs/CSFs, objectives, deliverables, schedules, bar charts (gannt charts), graphs, spreadsheets, milestones, (ideally you can have both tangible, concrete goals but do not forget to include the intangible, subjective goals) and also the excerpts from specific documents such as:  Proposal, Charter, Scope Statement and Project Plan

A system rapidly gaining popularity in projects and business is from Elliott Jaques.  A Canadian psychoanalyst and organizational psychologist, known for developing the notion of Requisite Organization from his 'Stratified Systems Theory'. (Wikipedia, see Elliott Jaques).

The more I study this, the more I realize how complex people and system interactions are within both business and project environments (you cannot have one without the other - so must link both with common platforms).  

Elliott is a supporter of innate, natural based hierarchies, where people can naturally be placed (within a structured strata or set of levels) and then excel as a collaborative group/entity. Align the role with the level of the person to prevent stress and maximize performance and happy quotient.

An article written by Elliott can be found at Harvard business review, called In Praise of Hierarchy .  In this article, he states.... to understand hierarchy, first you must understand employment. 

He continues to help remind us and clarify organizational structure with statements such as.....  To be employed is to have an ongoing contract that holds you accountable for doing work of a given type for a specified number of hours per week in exchange for payment. Your specific tasks within that given work are assigned to you by a person called your manager (or boss or supervisor), who ought to be held accountable for the work you do.

These basic concepts and definitions can be simple, yet they can be sensitive and may lead to people having different understandings.  Another reason as to why so many businesses and projects fail. Much stress is due to mis-understanding of roles, accountability and management interaction".

Can an organizational theory help us manage failure and risk (and Stress!!!)?

The requisite organization theory in its entirety is a great tool that can be leveraged.  It can be quite complex, but two core insights can be considered, as taken from the article:

 www.strategy-business.com/article/10938?gko=f119b

Insight 1
The first, is about potential capability and has to do with an innate quality of human nature: the amount of complexity that we can handle when we make a decision. This is complex to assess and often takes 100s of interviews and training to accurately assess, but is something objective and scientific when compared to most HR methods and practices. One of the simple indicators is the length of time span that the person works on (how long does the job or task take to be completed, is the person working on 1 day,  1 week, 3 month, 1 year, 7 year, 15 year jobs).  So thus people can be placed into strata, e.g. levels 1 to 7, based on the type of work they do.

Insight 2
The second is about managerial accountability. Every boss is accountable not just for overseeing subordinates, but for their results. It means that if people who report to you "screw up," you can't blame them. You either have to give them the support and coaching they need, or have the authority to rotate them to other posts, because you will be held responsible. A couple interesting aspects of this, is that a manager can refuse an employee that reports to them (have them moved to another job/position), and also the employee should have a Formalized Review Process (development & future growth) which should be managed by the manager once removed (two levels up) and not by the direct manager.

Granted, this type of system should have one key thing..... Trust with Positive Intent. In the end, establish that as much as you can, then remember to create a formal plan (roll out plan) as to how you will integrate systems such as Elliott's (as per above). Understanding and balance of Systems and Psychology will always create new opportunities for learnings and less stress and thus keep project management exciting!!!