Читать книгу Project Management For Dummies - Stanley E. Portny - Страница 19

You’d be hard-pressed to find a more pertinent and inspirational affirmation of the significance of the team than former long-time University of Michigan football head coach Bo Schembechler’s legendary 1983 “The team, the team, the team” pep talk that he gave before taking the field against longtime rival Ohio State. Taken out of the context of a team preparing for a football game against a bitter rival, or perhaps a battalion of soldiers preparing to take on an enemy, Schembechler’s speech might seem a bit extreme for more tame and routine activities like managing a project.

We are not suggesting you deliver an impassioned pep talk to your project team at your next kickoff meeting (although, if it’s appropriate for your audience, it could be fun to try)! Schembechler says, “We’re gonna play together as a team. We’re gonna believe in each other, we’re not gonna criticize each other, we’re not gonna talk about each other, we’re gonna encourage each other.” It is this portion of his speech that we consider when assessing a team’s dynamic. Your team, project or otherwise, will be most effective when members work together, support, encourage, and believe in each other, and promote an environment free from criticism (unless it’s constructive), disrespect, and other counterproductive behaviors. By the way, the Wolverines went on to defeat the Buckeyes in that Thanksgiving-weekend 1983 game with a final score of 24-21. Go Blue!

For a college football game, the stakeholders include upwards of 100 players, a dozen coaches, trainers, medical personnel, front-office staff, fans (both in person and around the world), media, the opposing team’s personnel, the referees, and many more. In fact, all the other teams in the league and their fans are also stakeholders in each football game, because, even if only in a small, indirect way, all these people are affected by the events and outcome of the game. Stakeholder is an intentionally vague term because, in project management, considering all possible ways your project impacts others and others impact your project can be critical to your project’s success.

The reality is that many of these football stakeholders have no measurable impact on any one game, football team, or coach. The same may be true for your project. During the initiation phase, identify and document, in a stakeholder register, everyone involved in some way in the activities or outcome of your project (see Chapter 4 for much more on stakeholders, including how to prepare a stakeholder register).

Then, ask those stakeholders who else they believe should be involved or might be impacted by your project and add them to your register. Depending on the size and scope of your project, you may want to continue identifying stakeholders. There is no correct number of stakeholders; no rule of thumb or best practice to say how many stakeholders you must identify before moving onto the next task. Use your discretion and compile the list that feels right for your project.

If your stakeholder list consists of you, your project team, and perhaps your client’s day-to-day key point of contact, either your list of stakeholders is incomplete or your project may not be worth pursuing! After all, why pursue a project whose outcome doesn’t really affect anyone, when you have other, more impactful ways to spend your time?

The stakeholder project management principle is all about engagement. The more you can proactively engage your stakeholders, early on and all throughout your project, the more likely you are to achieve its intended outcomes. Stakeholder engagement helps to ensure that you and your project team have the latest and most accurate information, business requirements, and expectations and, similarly, that your stakeholders are never out of the loop, particularly as it pertains to major decisions, milestones, risks, issues, and so on.