The Hard-Nosed Project Manager

OCMs Role In Communications with Stakeholders and Resistors webinar

First of all; OCM stands for Organizational Change Management.  I did not know that, maybe you did.  As it often happens, the webinar was plagued by technical issues.  Presenter and introducer could not talk to each other.  Adobe connect is nasty.  It’s been over a year with this technology, PMI should fix this.

Points the presenter made:

• You cannot skip identifying and engaging the stakeholders from the get go.  Look at organizational charts.  I’ll add that this has to be expanded to include the people working day to day with the project’s product; they may not be in the org chart but they must be on board.
• Document the findings of your stakeholder analysis.  Document their status (pro or con) toward the project, thei attitude towards change, etc.
• Communicate, communicate, communicate and then think about communicating.
• Identify each stakeholder as part of a group and the group as sponsors, change agents, targets (her term), etc.
• Use a bubble chart to show the size of the various stakeholder groups.  I don’t recall if she suggested the same type of chart but where power is the dimension.  10 mildly powerful stakeholders may have less power than the supremely powerful person.  She justly stated that loudness does not equal power.
• Showed a timeline (like Project 2010) that shows the high level communication plan.  This emphasize that the plan is a living thing, and should include repeat communications.  Underlying the timeline is a number of documents explaining the what and the who of the communications (a bit like work packages really).
• Complainers and resistors should be engaged immediately.  Why are they resisting?  Knowing this points you in the direction of how to address their issue.  Lack of knowledge about the project, no more status quo, potential loss of employment, not consulted, etc. are all reasons for resisting.

Sadly some of the material is not part of the PowerPoint stack, you’ll have to listen to the webinar.  Also it gave me the feeling that the change manager is seen as someone else than the PM.  I think the change manager can be a separate person for large projects or programs but for smaller endeavors, the change manager IS the PM.

All together a pretty good presentation with a very good Q&A session

What do you think? As always questions and comments are welcome.

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Human Resource Project Management CoP webinar; 5/3 at 13h00 Eastern - OCMs Role in Communications with Stakeholders and Resistors

There will be a Human Resource Project Management CoP webinar titled “OCMs Role in Communications with Stakeholders and Resistors " on 5/3 at 13h00 Eastern. Those who can’t attend should look for my comments after the webinar.

Sorry for the late notice; this just popped up in my email

 

Communicating Change with Seven Questions webinar

I just finished listening to the “Communicating Change with Seven Questions” with Peter de Jager presented by the PMI IS CoP.  I should have let you know in advance but…

I must say it was both entertaining and informative.  It spoke about change but mostly about communications, minimizing push back, and getting people on board with change.  I highly recommend you listen to the recording.

What do you think?  As always questions and comments are welcome.

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Entrainment and the project manager

Watch this short video podcast on entrainment by Phil McKinney of Killer Innovations fame.

   

If you have ever successfully changed the culture of a company, a habit, a process, etc. you have probably had to resist entrainment whether you knew it or not.  The basic moral of the story is that change won’t happen by itself, you have to give it a push.  Maybe a shove…

Let me say this about Phil McKinney and the Killer Innovations podcast; it is so good that I listened and kept every podcast Phil ever created.  My opinion is that you can’t afford to pass this stuff up.  You have no choice but to get your hands on the whole thing and go through the whole 6+ years.  Don’t fight; get cracking.

What do you think?  As always questions and comments are welcome.

Connect with me on LinkedIn.  I am a LinkedIn Open Networker (LION); you can use “Friend” to add me to your network, please mention the blog in your request.