Stakeholder's manage or engage?

:-) Steak-Holder

In my previous blog entries I have shown how the success of a project is measured, and that success is clearly related to the level of adoption of the project solution.  Therefore happy stakeholders are key to successful projects. 

In 1998 a UK National Audit Office report identified lack of effective engagement as one of the common causes of project failure. Again in 2009 this reason was cited as a common cause of project failure.

This is 2016, hopefully we have learnt enough about the impact of poor change management that we do not want to spear our stakeholders and force them into yielding to an imposition of a solution. If we follow this approach to implementing solutions then we are treating our stakeholders to divide and conqueror approach to implementation. 

The purpose of this post is to explore the differences between Stakeholder engagement and stakeholder management. Providing a discussion, thoughts and steps you can take to improve your stakeholders participation in your next project.

Back to the Future for tips on stakeholders and other puzzling influences!

In 1985 I left the British Army to start a new civilian career in a recession hit UK (I am known for taking a risk). I managed to get re-trained as a computer programmer (COBOL) and so began my second career in the IT world.  I moved quickly through up to leading teams and then to Project Management. I was fortunate enough to be introduced to the Open University (OU) to gain a civilian education (I joined the Army aged 16). 

In 1991 I enrolled on one of the best OU courses I ever undertook. It was titled "PT621 Introducing New Technology", it introduced me to the concept of change management and stakeholders / Influences on the project / programme of change.

In this blog entry I want to look to back to remind myself, and present to you of some of those ideas around identifying stakeholders and other influences on the project environment that are still relevant in this the future.

Portfolio Management - Review 2 (PMI's The Standard for Portfolio Management)

In previous posts I considered:

• What is Portfolio Management
• Management of Portfolios(MoP) – OGC (now Axelos)

This is the final post in this series on Portfolio Management. It will contain the review of the Project Management Institute's(PMI) Portfolio Management Standard, and I will provide some links to references and research papers I have found useful in developing my understanding.

I have an admission (if it is really that), I was a member on the PPMS core team that developed the first PMI Portfolio Management Standard 2005-2006. You will find my name on page 167 Section X2.9.1 in Appendix 2. The same core team also worked on the 1st edition of the Program Management Standard.

The third edition of the Standard for Portfolio Management has developed considerably from those early days. The first edition had three chapters 

If you care to look at Appendix X2 you will find some of the reviewers for this edition were involved in building the first edition so there is continuity of thought and ideas.

This post will examine the PMI Standard for Portfolio Management and how it can aid organizations in adopting Portfolio Management as part of their strategic delivery process.

Note all figures and images in this post are copyright of the Project Management Institute. 

Portfolio Management – Review 1 (MoP)

The three reference books identified on the previous post have their own process models

• Management of Portfolios(MoP) – OGC (now Axelos)
• Portfolio Management Standard (PMI)
• The Wiley Guide to Project, Program and Portfolio Management

Over the next two posts I will review parts of the two main publications and include thoughts from the Wiley Guide.

We can explore the models for similarities and differences, not to chose one model as the only path to Portfolio Nirvana, but rather to look at the practices and processes that will fit within our own organizations and business environments.

I am not seeking to cause process chaos by proposing a cut and paste from different models, but simply to help people understand that they do not need to become a slave to one model.  

They can legitimately choose a core model to adopt as a guiding philosophy for their portfolio management approach and then utilize concepts / processes from other models to tuning to suit the business environment, creating their ideal for their organization.

This post will explore the Management of Portfolios (MoP) Manual from Axelos, originally developed with the Office of Government Commerce in the UK.

"MoP® is a (registered) Trade Mark of AXELOS Limited. All rights reserved"All figures and images in this post are copyright of AXELOS Limited