Do you want to become a project management professional? Make sure you prepare for the PMP exam by completing one of our easy-to-follow exam preparation courses. We’ll cover everything you need to pass your PMP certification. Browse our website to learn more about our online education training courses, consulting services and PMP exam prep course to help you prepare for the PMP certification exam. Our courses are taught by senior project and program managers, each with over 20 years of experience to ensure our training offers practical information, techniques and tips that are applicable in the real world.
What Are The Root Causes of Project Problems and Failure
6) Project Alignment
Alignment among stakeholders is one of the most important factors in achieving project success. The project’s objective should support the organization’s mission, strategy and goals. Alignment means that all stakeholders agree on the key factors of the project including priority, objectives, scope, requirements, deliverables and resources. Additionally, lack of stakeholder alignment on approach/methodology, schedule, milestones, organization, and project management processes can also create significant issues and lead to project overruns, delays and even failure. Developing initial alignment on key factors can be difficult. Maintaining alignment through the duration of the project can be even more challenging. There can be as many opinions and points of view as there are stakeholders. Not only must customer and management views align, resource managers’ and project team members’ agreement is also important.
Without alignment, stakeholders may become frustrated because their expectations are not being met or managed. Frustrated stakeholders may withdraw their support and resources from the project or even work against the project’s chances at success. Maintaining alignment means managing communications and expectations. It means understanding the personalities, needs, desires and fears of the stakeholders and using proven processes, relationships, and persuasion and influence techniques to build and maintain alignment.
Alignment techniques start with good team building and facilitation skills to help stakeholders define and agree on project objectives, scope and requirements. Good project planning skills can also help facilitate alignment. These skills include developing a work breakdown structure (WBS), a well thought-out project schedule and resource plan, and clear project organization, as well as risk- and issue-management processes. All these tools and techniques help to build project alignment among the stakeholders. Other project management techniques and processes help to maintain alignment. These include updating the project schedule and resource plan, and managing the following: scope through a change of management process; issues and risk; status, through reporting and meetings; and customer and management expectations using regular steering team meetings/status updates. The most effective techniques a project manager can use to maintain alignment and manage expectations are those used by salesmen and politicians – relationship, persuasion and influence techniques, most commonly known as “people skills.”
Project managers who can maintain alignment through the effective use of people skills will generally be considered successful even if their projects are not perfectly on-schedule, on-budget or on-scope. If all or most of the stakeholder’s competing expectations are well managed and alignment is maintained, the project manager will be considered a success.
Project situations that display symptoms of a lack of project alignment include:
- The project seems never to end. Stakeholders keep adding scope to the project.
- The project resources aren’t available at the time they are needed, even after they committed to working on the project.
- The resources claim they can’t work on the project due to higher or changing priorities.
- The project customers are not satisfied with the deliverables.
- The project sponsor and/or steering team is shocked/surprised when they are told for the first time the project will be significantly late or will run significantly over budget.
- The project stakeholders have significantly differing expectations.
- Pet projects “steal” the project’s resources.
- The project stakeholders keep changing their minds about what they want, resulting in a significant amount of rework, cost overruns and missed deadlines.
- The project’s management expectations are unreasonable: Schedule, Resources, Funding, and Feasibility.
- The project’s management has differing levels of support and views of project value and priority.
