Often, when we assess project risk, we look at measurable factors. Scope management, solution quality, or test results. Such assessments require hard skills. But projects also derail as a result of stakeholder behavior, whether intentional or not. We need to use soft skills, such as empathy, to manage these risks.
Project failure rates Remain High
According to the Project Management Institute (PMI), just 50% of IT projects deliver the original business intent within time and budget. That’s an appallingly low number.
When looking at project failures, the institute found that these are the most important factors:
Of course, PMI identified a number of risk-mitigating factors too. These include a functional Project Management Office (PMO), executive sponsorship, and an agile delivery approach. Interestingly, half of the factors that lead to failure (poor communication, lack of communication by senior management, employee resistance) are behavioral. Clearly, another angle is needed beyond traditional project management.
Stakeholder Empathy
Poor communication, lack of direction, and employee resistance may be symptoms of stakeholder fear. In one project, I met a sales department manager who was concerned about losing control over her part of the business. In another, communication has stifled by executives not wanting to “own” the project for fear of failure, and the potential impact on their career. In yet another, employees were worried about the data capture burden on their field operations. Those concerns are all legit.
Hard skills don’t do much in such cases. That PMO isn’t going to resolve people’s fear about the project’s impacts. Better architecture won’t make concerns about halted ambitions go away.
To mitigate the risks of these failure factors, we have to better understand the worldview of the stakeholders, inside and outside the project. The best way to do this is through empathy. We have to understand the perspective through which stakeholders view the project in order to increase the chances of success.
Talking to Stakeholders as people
When relating to stakeholders in project situations, it is easy to see them in their role. They are a manager, a customer support person, or a report writer. But that’s not really who they are. They are people. Like you and I. Shocking, I know. Our stakeholders are people with ambitions and fears, hopes and worries. This project, our project, is a disruptor to them. Regardless of our own perception.
So we have to talk to stakeholders like people. Talk to them like the actual people that they are. Chances are, we first have to earn the privilege to have a meaningful conversation with them. Because we have been relating to them in their roles, not as people.
It’s really not that difficult. We are emphatic all the time with our children, parents, and friends. All we need to do is to chip away at our professional shield a bit to show our own vulnerability so we can start understanding theirs.
In the end, the technology implementation business is a people business. Let’s act accordingly.
Ernst Rampen ©2018
