Here is an opportunity to put theory into practice. Below you will find a brief outline of the situation facing a former client, Jim. Once you have digested the points below, please complete the exercise. This is best done with colleagues so you can discuss your thinking.

Introduction

1. The aim of Project Hawaii is to implement a new Management Information System. It is one of five projects Jim is currently managing, and most are going well.
2. The problem with Hawaii is that it is under-resourced from Finance, and some key deadlines are approaching. This has been occupying quite a bit of time, and so far Jim has failed to make any progress on this.
3. Anne (Management Services Director) is very busy on other matters. As Jim put it, “If only she would get a little more active and help me find the resources I need from Finance.”

 

Stakeholder Identification

4. As Management Services Director and sponsor of Jim’s project, Anne is obviously a key stakeholder.
5. Jim also noted down the existing project team members who are feeling the strain because of the gap in resources. The key ones are Peter, Sanjay and Felicity.
6. Marco, the Finance Director, could have a big impact — particularly since he is the one currently refusing to allocate resources to Jim’s project.
7. After a little more thought, it occurred to Jim that the people who would benefit most if his project landed was the Managing Director and the two Operations Directors. They would use the real-time data to make their day-to-day decisions as they grew the business — so he added Joe, Dawn and Bernd.
8. When talking with a friend, it emerged that Marco is also under pressure to provide resources to two other projects, Malta and Bermuda.
9. Project Malta, run by David, would launch a new product onto the market. This project was sponsored by the Marketing Director, Tanja. Sponsoring the project is Sally, Head of Sales. She is quite active getting people excited about this big opportunity.
10. Project Bermuda has been forgotten by many people and is looking at updating the budgeting processes across the whole organisation. This has been going on for some time, reporting to the Finance Director. Like many of these types of projects, it is resource hungry, and Charlie, the project manager, seemed to be quite good at holding onto the resources he needed.
11. There were lots of other people, but these seemed to be the main ones who could help or hinder Jim in securing the resources he needed to complete his project on time. In summary, his stakeholders are:

 

• Anne: Sponsor of Jim’s project.
• Peter, Sanjay and Felicity: Jim’s key project team members.
• Marco: Finance Director.
• Joe: Managing Director.
• Dawn and Bernd: Operations Directors.
• Tanja: Marketing Director.
• Sally: Head of Sales.
• David: Project Manager for Malta
• Charlie: Project Manager for Bermuda.

 

Additional Insights

12. Although Sanjay was on his own team, Jim noted that he was often making supportive noises but was repeatedly failing to play his part in pushing for more resource. Jim started to suspect that he could be a little sensitive about his role on the project and may be feeling vulnerable. If a more experienced resource joined the team, Sanjay could feel threatened. It was only a hunch, but there was definitely something not quite right.
13. As his sponsor, Anne is going to be an Advocate, but that title didn’t quite fit. She should be very much in agreement, but why had she not been able to make it happen and get Marco to allocate the necessary resources? They had always got on well, and Jim had noticed lately that she seemed a little distracted, or at least disinterested, in Project Hawaii.
14. Marco is clearly against giving up his resource; otherwise it would have happened by now, but Jim didn’t know him very well. There had never been any trouble or reason to doubt what he said — they’d nod to each other in the corridor, but that was about it.
15. Tanja was a completely different story; everyone liked Tanja. However, even behind the smile, it was clear she wanted to get her work done first and had even joked over a coffee that Jim would just have to wait his turn.
16. Charlie had a fearsome reputation. He was one of those devious characters who seemed to delight in seeing others struggle — it had even been rumoured that he’d gone out of his way last year to embarrass someone on the board for no other reason than to have a bit of fun. He did once try that on Jim, but didn’t quite get away with it because the MD (Joe) took him to one side and had one of those little chats which were almost part of company folklore. Of course, Joe was in full agreement with implementing Hawaii, but Charlie was dead against it.
17. Dawn and Bernd were the types that always said the right thing, but never really seemed to do anything. Only last week, Dawn had agreed to put pressure on Marco to get the resources sorted out, but nothing had happened — and not for the first time. Jim had started to think that they were just making the right noises to keep on the right side of Jim and avoid one of those quiet chats.
18. Sally was a bit of an enigma. He couldn’t quite figure her out. In fact, he wondered whether she should be on the stakeholder map at all.
19. Jim realised that Sally and Tanja were becoming much more powerful. They had been highly successful lately in working together to bring new products to market and had made the company lots of money.
20. Marco was someone who had been powerful for a long time. But after many rounds of cost-cutting and dwindling market share, the others were starting to think that the cuts had been too deep. Last year’s budget round had seen the marketing/sales budget rise by 20%, which came as a big surprise to many people around the office.

 

Case Study Exercise

Having read the information above, here is a chance to practice putting the ideas around the Stakeholder Influence Process into action.

1. Propose an Influencing Goal for Jim to use as his focus.

 

2. Complete a Stakeholder Map based on the insights above.

 

3. Propose a headline Influencing Strategy Jim could adopt.

 

 

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