The Top Tool for Developing Your Influence as a Project Manager
Stakeholder management is crucial to project management. And influencing others is crucial to stakeholder management. Don’t count on charisma or positional power for influence. Experienced project managers use project information as their go-to influence tool. Here are ways project information can turn you into an expert influencer.
Keep people informed about the project schedule. How many days have you had when someone hasn’t asked, “When will the project be done?” or “When will you need my resources?” or “Can we change the schedule?” A detailed project schedule answers all these questions. It can show the impact on important tasks if you change the schedule or alter the date a critical resource becomes available. Let your project schedule do the heavy lifting when it comes to influencing stakeholders.
Address risks and costs. Stakeholders, reacting without thinking, might request changes or actions that add scope, reduce testing, or deliver sooner. Address the risks and potential costs of such actions — in advance — by including them in risk, scope, and cost management plans. That way, you have ready-made arguments for sticking to agreed-upon plans.
Highlight trade-offs. In other instances, stakeholders request changes to plans based on wise business decisions. Show the trade-offs within these decisions. Fast-tracking a schedule adds risk. Crashing the project schedule adds cost. Presenting trade-offs is powerful: you either underscore the impact of change or end the discussion if the impact is deemed unacceptable. Either way, stakeholders move forward understanding the impact of their decisions.
Leverage experts. Building project deliverables with the help of technical experts strengthens your project planning. Use the influence of your team’s experience to confirm your approach. If you don’t have experts in-house, reach out to contractors or other project managers and technicians who have delivered projects like yours. Real-world experience boosts your ability to influence stakeholders.
For more about stakeholder management, check out Natasha Kasimtseva’s Managing Project Stakeholders course.