What do you do if your stakeholder's expectations are constantly changing in a project leadership role?
Navigating the waters of project leadership can be challenging, especially when stakeholders keep changing their expectations. As a project leader, your role is to manage these changes without compromising the project's success. You need to stay flexible, maintain open communication, and ensure that your project team is aligned with the evolving objectives. This can seem daunting, but with the right strategies, you can turn these challenges into opportunities for growth and innovation. Here's how you can effectively handle shifting stakeholder expectations and keep your project on track.
In project leadership, flexibility is key when dealing with changing stakeholder expectations. You must be willing to reassess and adjust the project plan as necessary. This doesn't mean compromising your project's goals but rather being open to finding new ways to achieve them. By fostering a flexible mindset within your team, you'll be better equipped to handle changes and pivot quickly. This agility will not only help meet stakeholders' needs but also can lead to innovative solutions that may improve the overall outcome of the project.
Effective communication is crucial in managing stakeholders' expectations. Regularly update them on project progress and any issues that arise. Ensure that all communication is clear, concise, and jargon-free to avoid misunderstandings. When expectations change, discuss the implications with your stakeholders and provide them with a realistic picture of what can be accomplished. It's important to establish a two-way communication channel where stakeholders can provide feedback and feel heard.
When expectations shift, it's vital to realign the project's objectives with the new requirements. Work with stakeholders to understand their revised goals and ensure these are reflected in the project plan. This may involve renegotiating deadlines or resources to accommodate the changes. Keeping everyone's objectives in sync will help prevent scope creep and ensure that the project delivers value that aligns with stakeholders' current needs.
Scope management becomes even more important when stakeholder expectations change. You need to carefully evaluate each new request and its impact on the project scope. Be transparent with stakeholders about what is feasible within the existing constraints and what might require additional time or resources. It's essential to maintain control over the project scope to avoid overcommitting and ensure successful delivery.
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Ciro Barbieri da Cunha, PMP, MBAs
Business Transformation and Project Management Senior Executive / Consultant
Expectations are everything the stakeholders expect about the deliverables but that were never formalized. So it is more than expected that stakeholders' expectations change along the project lifecycle. Bringing expectations to the light so that they become actual needs require permanent attention from the Project Manager and permanent conversation among that professional and the stakeholders. Changes in the scope must follow some steps that starts with the expectation being formalized. This is when it becomes a need. The need has to be assessed regarding impacts (most important are time, cost and quality) and it will become part of the scope after the decision makers approve it. Processes may vary but the steps will be those ones.
Your team should be well-equipped to handle changes in stakeholder expectations. Provide them with the necessary training on change management and adaptive methodologies like Agile or Scrum. This will empower them to be more responsive to changes and maintain productivity even when the project's direction shifts. A well-trained team is a resilient team that can help navigate through the uncertainties of changing demands.
Finally, when faced with changing expectations, engage your stakeholders and team in collaborative problem-solving. This collective approach can lead to creative solutions that satisfy stakeholders while keeping the project viable. Encourage open discussions where everyone can share ideas and concerns. This not only helps in finding the best path forward but also fosters a sense of ownership and commitment among all parties involved.
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Katharine Harrison PMP, CSM
Digital Transformation Program/Project Manager
If changes are warranted and budget is available, schedule is flexible and sponsor signs off then you confirm the scope with sponsor and resource the changes. Often at the start of a project there are unknowns and risks that may become active issues. It’s your role to manage expectations. Be open to changes as a more perfect set of deliverables are being created.
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