Project Expectation Management

Project Expectation Management

In managing a project, one of the critical factors that doesn't get enough attention is EXPECTATION management.
No matter what method or process you use to deliver, you must realize that your project will have far reaching impact on many lives. Everyone will have their own perception of what's being delivered. As a project manager, one must make sure that everyone's expectation is managed appropriately. This will help keep everyone's focus on the mission, objectives, and deliverables of a project.
COMMUNICATION is at the heart of expectation management, which helps us with establishing a balance between expectations and realities surrounding a project.

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Jose Daniel Esterkin
CEO, Argentina

Identifying the Expectations of Project Stakeholders

It is not enough to deliver on the CUSTOMER's demands; successful projects have to meet ALL stakeholder expectations.
This is a tough target because each stakeholder has a different idea of what constitutes "success" of the project.

IDENTIFYING THE EXPECTATIONS OF PROJECT STAKEHOLDERS
One of the most beneficial and yet neglected activities in project work is taking the time to clarify mutual expectations with the stakeholders. Don't assume that you already know by gut feeling what all of the other parties want, are going to do, how they'll behave, and what they'll deliver to your project. There are countless situations where a project ends and one or more parties are disappointed.

Delivering the correct product or service, which performs as the customer (and all other stakeholders) expect, is no accident. Practices developed and established within the quality discipline can be applied to the project management discipline. This integration begins as the project is conceived and carries forward until the outcome of the project is created and is accepted by the customer. These practices focus on clearly understanding what the stakeholders want and consciously planning to deliver it, including methods for ensuring the product will be correctly built.

IDENTIFYING THE PROJECT STAKEHOLDERS
Obviously, before you can ask them about their expectations, you need to identify all the stakeholders of your project, and that is not so simple as it seems. Who will be affected negatively or positively by this project?

Well, there is no magic for this, or a specific methodology. Here are two approaches you can use in most of the projects:
1. EXPERT JUDGEMENT: you invite some experts who have experience in the industry or the technology related to the project. You ask them who they think this project will impact. You document their responses and try to use this information for identifying individuals or groups that will be affected.
2. STAKEHOLDER IDENTIFICATION WORKSHOP: you coordinate a practical workshop that uses creativity techniques to identify stakeholders. Example: you distribute post-it notes and ask participants to write stakeholders names or groups the project is going to affect. You give them keywords to help them do this: "processes", "technology", "business", "users", "clients", etc.

Source: Lynda Bourne (2006), "Project Relationships and the Stakeholder Circle"

8Manage
Editor, China

Project Requirements Management

Why is Requirements Management important?
Requirements exist within all projects. Requirements are simply a capability needed by stakeholders to deliver a product and/or service. Requirements Management is an iterative set of activities that helps ensure that elicitation, documentation, refinement, and changes of requirements are adequately dealt with during a lifecycle, with a view toward satisfying the overall mission or need in a quality manner and to the customers’ satisfaction.

A typical requirements management process involves the following:
- Identify stakeholders
- Gather/elicit requirements
- Analyze requirements
- Specify/document requirements
- Baseline requirement groups (verify, validate, and prioritize requirements- i.e.: agree and sign-off on requirements)
- Communicate requirements
- Monitor/track requirements
- Manage and control changes to requirements
- Report requirements compliance

During this process, you need to have a tool that pulls together the steps and helps to manage them properly. Modern project management software provides requirements management features to help you on the following:
- Managing requirement version and content changes
- Storing requirement attributes
- Linking requirements to other system elements
- Providing multiple views of groups of requirements based on their attribute values
- Monitoring the state of each requirement or groups of requirements
- Controlling access to requirements and therefore, preventing unauthorized changes
- Facilitating the communication of requirements to requirement stakeholders

The requirements management functionality of your project management tool can help you provide multiple views to user groups of requirements. You may have a particular stakeholder or project manager that needs a regular report or a regular understanding of where their requirements are at. This may be for a subcomponent of a project or the entire project, and he/she may need to know which requirements are waiting to be approved, who are they waiting to be approved by, and how many requirements have been deferred this week.

Since requirements changes will probably trigger project plan changes, using integrated requirements and project management functionality is better than using separate tools.

Tendekai Dzinamarira
Manager, Zimbabwe

Benefits Realization Management of Projects

According to Ward and Daniel (2012), Benefits Realization Management (BRM) is an approach in project management that focuses on allocating time and resources effectively to achieve desired project outcomes. There are various methods at the disposal of project managers that they can use to visualise the benefits realisation management (Morris P. and Pinto, J., 2004). These various methods include the Benefits Dependency Map, the Benefits Dependency Network as well as the Results Chain.

Benefits Realization Management Stages

BRM has three main stages:

Stage 1: IDENTIFY THE BENEFITS
The project manager, with the help of his team, identify the benefits that will arise as a result of carrying out a particular project. They assess the feasibility of the project and whether the benefits to be realised align with the organisation’s larger or long term objectives.
Stage 2: EXECUTE THE BENEFITS
After assessing the organization’s capability to carry out the project, the focus is shifted onto bringing the benefits to reality. The project manager devises the plan as well as the tasks to be carried out with the timeframes in order to deliver the expected results. The plan may have a list of the project’s desired outcomes, key performance indicators to measure progress as well as methods for discovering opportunities to produce new benefits. It is at this stage that the project manager can use the methods mentioned earlier for developing a benefits realization plan. These methods may help the project manager and his team to realize and communicate the benefits of carrying a project in a a more clear way.
Stage 3: SUSTAIN THE BENEFITS
This stage involves evaluating the performance of a project’s deliverables. It is the last stage in which managers have the chance to ensure that the realized outcomes of a particular project continue to add value or benefits to the company.

The above stages may have already hinted that project managers can benefit from implementing this technique into their project. Overall, the method helps the managers in different organisations to realise the value of their investments. One major benefit of using this technique is that it helps in ensuring that the project’s progress is in alignment with delivering its benefits. Also, from identifying the potential benefits of a project, the potential risks or issues that may arise can be more easily addressed.
However, BRM also has several disadvantages such as the fact that it can be difficult to track or even measure all the benefits of the projects. Also BRM can consume a lot of time which is one of the most crucial resources in managing projects. In addition, the Project Management Institute (2013) claims that implementing the technique for the first time may be difficult and may require a lot of planning as well as coordination from team members.

Please share any experiences and best practices in implementing BRM. Did you experience any challenges that may inhibit effective implementation of the technique?

References:
1. Ward, J., Daniel, E. (2012). Benefits Management: How to Increase the Business Value of Your IT Projects. United Kingdom: Wiley.
2. Project Management Institute. (2013). The standard for project management. Newtown Square, PA: Project Management Institute.
3. Morris, P. W. G., & Pinto, J. K. (2004). The Wiley guide to managing projects. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons..