Productive communication, among other key project management skills

Our last article covered ‘Smart Planning for Execution Excellency’ as key project management skill number 1 for any project or program to be successful. This article focuses on two other key project management skills: careful project risk and stakeholder management, open and productive communication. In the last edition we called them “key project management skills allowing any project to succeed.” It’s because without them, no project can achieve success, as we have observed it. However, with the skills projects even exceed their targets.

For more details on the previous article, some prevalent management blunders which negatively affect project management, and even a certain background on management, if you’ve not read it yet, you can click this link: https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/key-project-management-skills-allowing-any-succeed-ndabananiye-1f/?trackingId=dqrPyC8JR7Say%2F1rTeft%2BA%3D%3D.

?Definition of key terms

*Project risk- an uncertain even which may happen or not happen in project??implementation. A project risk can produce a negative or positive impact on the progress of the project.

Two broad project risk types- project risks include two broad categories being internal risks and external risks. Internal risks are in your organization. You possess control over them. You find them easier for you to mitigate them. External risks are situated outside your organization. They exist naturally beyond your control.

Common areas of project risks –cost, schedule, quality, performance, communication, operations and skill set, governance, strategy, market, law, external hazards, health and safety. In other words, those are key areas where, as a project manager, you need to look for areas which can affect your project.

Those areas can be split into three types: internal risks, external risks, and physical/natural environment. The internal risks include issues which are involved in the project scope. The latter one contains the goal, specific objectives, deliverables, activities, costs, deadlines, and project boundaries, among others. Thus, the areas of cost, schedule/timeline, quality, performance, communication, operations and skill set, governance, strategy, health and safety exist in an organization’s control. They are internal risk areas. We’ve divided the external areas of market, law, external hazards, government, and society into two categories, to make risk management more easily understandable and manageable. That’s why we have reached 3 categories while it basically exists two primary types of categories. In short, the external risk areas involve external stakeholders and issues which occur in the physical environment.

Careful project risk management- the process of identifying project risks, creating a plan to mitigate them, and daily following them up so as to handle them successfully. This process is for the risks not to hamper the project.

*Project stakeholder- a person or group directly or indirectly affected by the project. It’s the person who has something to win or lose, because of the project. Project stakeholders are also divided into two broad categories: internal stakeholders and external stakeholders.

Internal project stakeholders are those who are directly impacted by or directly benefit from the project, and are outside an organization. They include the project manager, the project team, functional management, and owners of the company. In fact, the internal project stakeholder is the person who directly intervenes in project execution.

External project stakeholders are those who are outside the organization. They don’t form part of the project or business. Yet, they enjoy an interest in its outcome. They involve suppliers, customers, shareholders, creditors, government, and society.

Primary versus secondary stakeholders- primary stakeholders are highly interested in the success of the project. The reason is that they are directly connected with and affected by the outcome. The project manager, the project team, project sponsors, and even customers, and end users are in this category of primary stakeholders. Secondary stakeholders are those remaining ones whose role in the project and expectation aren’t primary. But, they also assist in the successful completion of the project with administrative, financial, and law aspects. The customers and end-users aren’t concerned with the day-to-day activities of the project. But they are primary stakeholders since they are concerned with the finished project-product or service they expect to benefit from.

Direct vs indirect project stakeholders- direct project stakeholders are those who are assigned to the implementation of project daily activities. Indirect stakeholders are those who are interested in the end result of the project. They involve your customers and product/service end-users. These are interested in issues like the quality and price of your product or service to be produced by the project.

Stakeholder management- the process of identifying stakeholders, prioritizing them, and creating communication mechanisms to engage them in the support of the project. It implies that the weapon of stakeholder management is communication to develop beneficial relationships with your stakeholders, for your project to succeed.

Open and productive communication- it can also be called free and result-generating communication. In brief, it is worry-free and effective communication. It’s the one which first enables you to honestly provide messages and information without any fear to face any issues. ?Secondly, it’s the communication that conveys your messages and information as accurately as you intended, and thus brings your intended outcomes. For more details on effective communication, you can read this article on the link: https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/effective-communication-still-problem-despite-being-ndabananiye/?trackingId=hr8cMmtpSWW3PrVpaFDVhg%3D%3D

Illustrative case- successful project

It is one of successful projects in which I was employed in the past. It was dubbed ‘Promoting Peace Project’. It was sponsored by USAID. It was led by Landesa, and implemented by Search For Common Ground, and a local non-governmental organization-Haguruka which defends women and children’s rights.

I often mention this project, because it’s a project which has really mesmerized me. It managed to peacefully resolve 404 out of 720 disputes identified in two districts: Kayonza and Nyagatare in the Eastern Province. It did so for only 18 months of field work in 2014 to 2015.

The 42nd President of the USA, William Jefferson Clinton in June 7th 2007 Harvard Graduation Speech stated “If I were to give you one tip to help you be successful, it would be to spend quality time investing in building a network of contacts around the world.”

In the meantime, Rachel Thompson once, an experienced change management consultant once said “Stakeholder management is critical to the success of every project in every organization I have ever worked with. By engaging the right people in the right way in your project, you can make a big difference to its success and to your career.”

Erin Palmer in March 2014 wrote five factors leading to successful projects. Two of them are open communication and careful risk management. She said “Examining details and listening to outside sources of information are vital to the success of a project. Keeping open communication with the team is absolutely essential. Listening to stakeholders and paying attention represent a very important ingredient for success.”

“Project managers know things rarely go off exactly as planned. It’s vital to produce a risk log with an action plan for the risks. Make sure all key project stakeholders know your risk log and where to find it so that they can use it to resolve issues.”

For our project to achieve the success, we applied the skills, as we are going to explain it. Like any other project, this project also had its stakeholders, like Local Authorities: District, Sector and Cell Authorities.

One of key activities of the project was Community Dialogues which had to be attended by community members. These Community Dialogues were platforms devised to facilitate the peaceful conflict resolution process.

We really wanted the Local Leaders’ full support for our project to run smoothly and accomplish the success.

Approaches to win the full support of the Local Government Authorities

First of all, I was assigned to this task. The first and foremost thing I performed was to gather reliable information on these key project stakeholders. One of data collection mechanisms was to resort to the direct project stakeholders on the field. They provided me with information on the extent to which the Local Authorities in those stakeholders’ territories understand or support our project.

But I didn’t rely only on the information they gave me. But I didn’t disdain it either. I instead showed them that I was interested to listen to them. Yet, it was a true interest. I decided to evaluate/assess the information. So, I personally went to the field only to check and crosscheck the information, by conducting my own observation. I collected data and compared them with the information I already had.?The information I collected matched the information I’d already been given at a 100%. It signifies that my own information on the leaders’ understanding and support for the project confirmed the information from the direct stakeholders.

The information was that there were some Local Authorities who actually understood the project and consequently easily subscribed to it. This was due to their previous exposure to such projects. There were others who didn’t comprehend the project, and exhibited low interest. The reason was that just they didn’t understand the project. This is normal. A person actually supports a cause they know. It’s the project team’s responsibility to explain and clarify all issues about the project. The team must also elucidate the benefits of the project for its stakeholders. No one can be engaged in a thing which doesn’t bear them any interest or advantage- either direct or indirect.

I then noticed it was obligatory to concentrate more efforts on the Sector Authorities, to create stronger support for the project. In fact, both interested and uninterested stakeholders must be engaged. Notwithstanding, they need different mechanisms of communication.

Finally, I developed an effective and efficient Communication Mechanism to engage these officials and the Community Dialogue Participants. I shared it with the Project Staff in a meeting to furnish their inputs. We urged Community Resource Persons (CRPs) to smoothen collaboration, networking and relationship with the Local Authorities.

The tactic was to talk to the leaders face-to-face about project achievements- presenting project benefits for them. The CRPs had to link their achievements [project success] with the Local Authorities’ success at their work, and give them regular reports.?I specifically urged the CRPs to seek innovative ways to procure authorities’ massive engagement.

Impact

Really, for citizens to partake in the Community Dialogues, we had to depend on the Local Leaders who had to invite them. All Local Leaders in territories covered by the project were massively supportive. They owned the project. They mobilized their citizens to participate.

It’s the Local Authorities who invited citizens to partake in the Community Dialogues on behalf of the CRPs and the Project Staff.??However, according to how the project was initially organized, it’s the CRPs and the Project Staff that had to invite the citizens to the Community Dialogues. We nonetheless detected that this couldn’t truly work.

If we’d not developed a plan to secure the Local Government Authorities’ considerable support, the project could have turned into a total loss. But we now rejoice over the project, and highly thank the leaders for their full support to the project. Yet both citizens and Local Authorities have actually commended the project.

For example, in 2015, Jacqueline Murekatete [in this photo]- a Tabagwe sector resident in Nyagatare said “Allow me to praise the Lord, thanks to this marvelous project, it has been my redeemer and is being a redeemer for other people.”

Murekatete’s husband, Jean de Dieu Habiyambere [ in the below picture] then went far to affirm that donors should even attach more importance to conflict-handling projects than other ones dealing with other sectors. “People saying or thinking that projects- dealing with intangible things shouldn’t be attached value- deceive themselves considerably; they are totally wrong. This project has been designed to peacefully resolve/transform land-related conflicts and it has managed to successfully transform our dispute peacefully while even local government leaders had failed.

During the time when the violent conflict was still existing, we never knew peace- we stagnated in the war, a fighting environment; therefore, our children were no longer eating well and sometimes lacked food, some of the children had dropped out of school, the violent conflict forced me to even move from the country to Uganda, I once attempted to perpetrate suicide of myself because of the dispute,” says Habiyambere. For more information on this case, you can click on this link: https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/holistic-approach-peacebuilding-necessity-lasting-ndabananiye/?trackingId=uwuUKOgrYUjW8u5JF5pUww%3D%3D .

Kayonza Mayor, John Mugabo, was then mayor of Kayonza. On 15th October 2015, Mugabo, the CRPs, the then US A Ambassador to Rwanda-Erica Barks Ruggles, and a US Congressional Staff Member on Appropriations Committee were together in Kayonza. Ruggles wanted to learn from these women (CRPs) who were regarded as heroines. It’s the CRPs who were at the frontline of helping disputants to get out of their disputes amicably.

Mugabo said “I thank our women, you are heroines. These women are helping us a lot; they are peacefully resolving disputes which would hinder our development because a society with disputes can’t climb out of poverty. The project has benefitted on both sides: CRPs and citizens.”

Lesson Learnt?

I have chiefly learnt that it obligatory to regularly conduct Careful Risk Management and Stakeholder Management. To accomplish this, you need to bear in mind these wide risk categories- Internal Environment-Related Risks and External Environment-Related Risks.

It permits you to know issues you’re to keep watch over so as to identify the risks and analyze them in a bid to take action. In this regard, internal environment issues likely to cause project risks involve Organizational/Project Resources- labor, finance, material& equipment and processes. External environment issues include External Project Stakeholders (Donor/Sponsor or Authorities) and PESTLE representing Political/ Economic/ Socio-cultural/ Technological/ Legal& Ecological parameters.?

I have also noticed that it is also necessary to exercise open and productive communication by listening to both internal and external sources. You must also carefully examine the information you’re given. This enables you to obtain useful information which will permit you to make an informed and wise decision. Every piece of information is to be checked and crosscheck. This crosschecking brings more useful information which you’ve not obtained before. So, you’re moreover sure of action to take.

By Jean Baptiste Ndabananiye

Experienced Journalist with a demonstrated history of working in the broadcast media industry and peace-building. Skilled in English and French, M&E, Media Production, Peace-building, Leadership, Marketing, Advocacy, and Kinyarwanda- English-French Translation. Strong media and communication professional with a Bachelor's and Master's focused in Journalism& Communication and MBA-Project Management respectively from University of Rwanda and Mount Kenya University.