As I opened the email from one of our project managers, my first thought was, “What did we just miss?!?”
This PM was holding a routine post-project review of the application our department helped create. Unbeknownst to her and others in the room, a stealth stakeholder showed up and demanded to know why this software had the features it did. He wanted to know why he wasn’t consulted. He wanted answers and he wanted them yesterday. We all know the type.
Kathy* (not her real name) forwarded me this gentleman’s diatribe. It was a bit condescending, but had a valid point: why wasn’t he included earlier in the process? Didn’t we know about his expertise? Why wasn’t it utilized?
A bit of research revealed that although this was a subject matter expert, the scope of the project was purposely limited to one department. They wanted to use this software as a sales tool. What brought this to light? A thorough scope statement of course!
We often want to jump right into planning without first considering the audience. We want to dispense with the small hoops that help us define our projects. Yet, Initiation is every bit as important to the project as Execution and Closing. We had done our homework and so we had the support to justify our exclusion of this stakeholder.
The lesson learned is that while it seems we whiffed on a key assignment, we had proceeded according to our original scope after all. The PM forwarded the email to our CIO and he was able to effectively defend our decisions. Proper initiation and planning made all the difference. Make sure not to skip the small steps. Small steps set the course of your journey.
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