Stakeholder Management and Interpersonal Skills

Interpersonal Skills

• Building trust is an essential interpersonal skill
• Resolving conflicts is a key aspect of interpersonal skills
• Active listening is a crucial component of interpersonal skills
• Overcoming resistance to change is a vital interpersonal skill

Management Skills

• Presentation skills are essential for effective management
• Negotiating skills are critical for successful management
• Writing skills are necessary for effective management
• Public speaking is a vital management skill

Project Communication Management Process

• The process involves planning, managing, and controlling communication
• Planning involves determining what communication is required and how it will happen
• Managing involves creating, distributing, and storing project information
• Controlling involves monitoring and disposing of project information

Stakeholder Management

• Identifying stakeholders and their potential impact is critical
• Developing a good working relationship with stakeholders is essential
• Managing high-impact, high-influence stakeholders is vital
• Issues get resolved in a timely manner through effective stakeholder management

Effective Communication

• Effective communication provides information in the right format, at the right time, to the right people, with the right impact
• Efficient communication provides information only when it is needed

Goal of Communication Management

• Keeping stakeholders on the same page involves understanding project goals and objectives
• Managing expectations is critical
• Clarifying project roles and responsibilities is essential
• Resolving issues in a timely manner is vital

The Anatomy of Communication

• A basic communication plan includes what message, to whom, by whom, how it will be delivered, how frequently, and what response or result is desired
• A comprehensive communication plan includes level of formality, push, pull, or interactive, and any sensitivities or cultural context

Monitoring and Controlling Communications

• This process ensures that the information needs of the project and its stakeholders are met
• The benefit of this process is the optimal information flow as defined in the communications management plan and the stakeholder engagement plan

Develop Schedule

• Create a network diagram to outline activities and their relationships.
• Understand the terminology:
  • Mandatory Predecessor: a task that must exist before the next step.
  • Discretionary: a task that is not a necessity but a matter of preference or best practice.
  • External Dependencies: a task that depends on an external factor.

Sequence the Activities

• Apply leads and lags:
  • Lag: time that has to pass before the next task can start.
  • Lead: a task that doesn't have to wait until the predecessor is totally finished.

Estimate the Activity Duration

• Determine how long each activity will take to complete with the available resources.

Critical Path Method (CPM)

• The critical path is a path through the network diagram that has no slack or float.
• The duration of the critical path is the earliest time that the project can be completed.
• There can be multiple critical paths if two or more paths have the same length.
• Slack or float is the amount of time an activity can be delayed without delaying the project finish date.

Golden Rules of CPM

• The critical path determines the earliest time that the project can be completed.
• The critical path is a path through the network diagram that has no slack or float.
• Slack or float is the amount of time an activity can be delayed without delaying the project finish date.

Practice Example 1

• Create a network diagram to outline activities and their relationships.
• Calculate the duration of each activity.
• Determine the critical path and the earliest finish date.

Schedule Performance Index (SPI)

• SPI determines whether the project is ahead of schedule or behind schedule.
• SPI = EV / PV
• SPI > 1.0 means the project is ahead of schedule, SPI < 1.0 means the project is behind schedule.

To Complete Performance Index (TCPI)

• TCPI determines whether the project can meet the budget.
• TCPI = (BAC - EV) / (BAC - AC)
• TCPI > 1 means the project needs to be more efficient than it has been up to now to meet the budget.

Interpersonal Skills

• Building trust
• Resolving conflict
• Active listening
• Overcoming resistance to change

Management Skills

• Presentation skills
• Negotiating
• Writing skills
• Public speaking

Manage Stakeholder Expectations

• Review, analyze, and update the communication plan.
• Determine what is learned, and if the communication plan is working.
• Update the stakeholder management strategy.

Project Communication Management

• Plan the communication: determine what communication is required and how it will happen.
• Manage the communication: timely and appropriate collection, creation, distribution, storage, retrieval, management, monitoring, and disposition of project information.

Risk Management

• Identify the risk: determine what may happen that could impact the project.
• Analyze the risk: determine the probability and impact of the risk.
• Plan the risk response: determine what action to take to mitigate the risk.
• Avoid, mitigate, transfer, or accept the risk.

Plan Risk Response

• Determine the planned response or tactic to deal with the risk.
• 4 ways to deal with negative risk:
  • Avoid: prevent the risk from happening.
  • Mitigate: take action to reduce the impact of the risk.
  • Transfer: pay someone else to accept the risk.
  • Accept: accept the risk if it cannot be avoided, mitigated, or transferred.

Develop Schedule

• Precedence Diagramming Method (PDM) is used to create a network diagram that outlines the activities and their relationships.

Sequencing Activities

• Mandatory Predecessor: an activity that must exist before the next step.
• Discretionary Predecessor: not a necessity but a matter of preference or best practice.
• External Dependency: an activity that cannot start until an external factor is complete.

Applying Leads and Lags

• Lag: time that has to pass before the next task can start.
• Lead: a task can start before the predecessor is totally finished.

Estimating Activity Duration

• Estimate the time required to complete each activity with the available resources.
• Determine the overall project duration.

Network Diagram

• Create a network diagram with durations for each task.
• Determine the number of paths in the network diagram.
• Calculate the timeframe for each path by adding the durations.
• The path with the longest timeframe is the critical path.

Key Points for Calculating Each Task

• Earliest Start (ES): the earliest time a task can start.
• Duration: the timeframe for each task to complete.
• Earliest Finish (EF): the earliest time a task can finish.
• Latest Start (LS): the latest time a task can start.
• Latest Finish (LF): the latest time a task can finish.
• Float: the difference between ES and LS, EF and LF, representing days left or delayed from the task.

3-Point Estimating (Triangular Distribution)

• Most Likely Estimate (M): the most realistic estimate for completing a task.
• Optimistic Estimate (O): the best-case scenario estimate.
• Pessimistic Estimate (P): the worst-case scenario estimate.
• Triangular Distribution Formula: M = (O + M + P)/3.

Beta Distribution PERT

• Beta Distribution PERT is a weighted average that gives more weight to the most likely estimate.
• It increases the accuracy of the estimate and determines the level of certainty.

Manage Stakeholder Expectations Outputs

• Review, analyze, and update the communication plan to ensure it is working.
• Update the change requests, issues log, and stakeholder management strategy as needed.

Communication Management Process

• Plan communication: determine what communication is required and how it will happen.
• Manage communication: collect, create, distribute, store, retrieve, manage, monitor, and dispose of project information.

Types of Risk

• Known Risk: identified and analyzed with a planned response.
• Unknown Risk: cannot be proactively managed, have a contingency plan.
• Positive Risk: aim to maximize opportunities where good things happen.
• Negative Risk: minimize threats that are potential project problems.
• Risk that has happened: is no longer a risk but a project issue.