Choose Your Stakeholders Wisely in IT Projects
The right choice of team for projects
In pre-cloud days, IT projects had a definite beginning and a definitive end. Choosing the right leadership team to keep everyone on track was paramount to project success. Now in the cloud era, however, instead of start and end dates, there are now continuous product cycles. In a way, this means that projects are never finished; they are constantly evolving.
Project managers also sometimes have to make spontaneous decisions about platforms and technologies to minimize redundancy, for example, or to respond to urgent business needs. Project architecture design depends on understanding the many technologies involved. Monitoring security and productivity are never-ending tasks, as is managing "shadow IT." In cloud computing, many IT departments are leveraging new DevOps processes and tools to simplify and improve workflows and decision-making. Despite the rapid pace of new developments, organizations still need project managers to maintain balance.
IT project leadership plays a key role in keeping everyone on the same page. Project managers ensure conformance to business priorities and requirements and facilitate decision-making in the event of any conflicts.
On top of that, since enterprises are now using IaaS and PaaS technologies, A.I. and container technologies, project managers can mitigate the risk of analysis paralysis, resulting in faster decisions and less pointless work. The ability to define what is "good enough for this release" keeps everything moving and minimizes friction between team members.
Select with simplicity in mind
When selecting leadership, less is more. There are projects that have involved more than 10 team leaders. When it is time to make decisions, everyone in the room looks around for someone to actually say what should happen now. Thus, it becomes almost impossible to reach a consensus. Experience suggests that it is best to strive for a small group of team leaders with clearly defined roles.
For IT projects, three roles have emerged as most effective.
Business Owner: This person is often the owner of the project. He or she must be able to effectively represent and communicate the requirements of the project's end users. The workload is greatest for this role at the beginning of a project.
Organizational Leader: Often the IT executive, who is also the project sponsor. This role's buy-in for proposed solutions to project progress is essential. The organization leader should be actively involved throughout the project.
Functional Influencer: this role does not always take the biggest decisions or have the budget, but rather is a person who advocates for the team and serves as a point of contact.
Typically, the organization leader consults with the Project Lead to select the appropriate Business Owner and Functional Influencer. Other Project VIPs may also have a say in these decisions, these decisions should not be rushed under any circumstances. However, if the inappropriate Business Owner now participates in the project, this could, under some circumstances, result in the finished project not meeting the specified goals. If the organizational leader is unable to clear any hurdles that arise and make sound decisions quickly, a project will get out of hand and significant delays will result. An inappropriate functional influencer cannot build the trust necessary to convince his or her colleagues of the project's predetermined direction, resulting in productivity and morale issues.
Team leadership selection should also include individuals who can have an impact throughout the lifecycle of the project and cover a broader skill set - compared to individuals with very specific areas of expertise, such as cyber security. If disagreements arise during the selection of team leadership, the project manager always has the final say.
Resolve conflicts
In team management, sooner or later there will be disagreements, both among themselves and with teams from other projects. This is quite normal - up to a point. When things seem to be going along wonderfully, suddenly an important person decides for himself that the current direction of the project does not fit anymore. This significantly disrupts the entire process. Such a thing is fine, the team's strategy can be adjusted to it - sometimes rightly so. However, repeated interruptions can be dangerous for the success of the project.
The classic saying "forewarned is forearmed" applies directly here. The best way to prevent such conflicts is to involve all parties at the beginning and throughout the project life cycle. An employee is much less likely to go rogue and stay engaged if that employee was there at every step of the decision-making process.
In the worst cases, however, such derailment efforts have a "political" background. In such cases, the project manager must step in and address the concerns. Possibly even higher positions such as the CIOs or CTOs should be called in to resolve such conflicts.
In some cases, others will push to increase team leadership. For example, many teams have multiple Functional Influencers, or due to organizational politics, a specific person is on the team leadership. However, such moves should be made very carefully; ideally, the team leadership should consist of only the absolute most necessary people. Occasionally, some stakeholders may not seem essential in the first place, but may turn out to be important mediators in the team leadership when clear fronts or disagreements arise.
IT organizations today are much flatter than they used to be. While this is not bad for efficient and fast collaboration and value creation, it is not necessarily helpful when the team faces hurdles internally. The right selection of effective and respected individuals for team leadership, who can safely maneuver their staff through proverbial minefields, is the backbone of any project, large or small.
