Lesson 12: Organization, Part 2

Based on AXELOS PRINCE2^® material. Reproduced under licence from AXELOS. All rights reserved.
Note: PRINCE2 2017 edition is now called PRINCE2 6th edition.

00:06 – Our next scenario is we have an Executive that has two suppliers and the Executive wants these two suppliers on the Project Board, but the Executive does not wish to share budget information with them because the suppliers might start putting their prices up.
00:24 – So as a Project Manager, what would you advise the Executive to do?
00:30 – Just don’t share the information. Is it that easy?
00:35 – Well, maybe even you can have two different types of meetings.
00:39 – In one of them, you will talk about budgets and things like that with the Senior Users, and the other type of meeting in which you don’t have the Senior in the first one, you don’t have the Senior Supplier, it’s only the Executive and the Senior User and they will talk about everything, and then when they want to talk about more practical things, they will bring the Senior Suppliers.
01:00 – But shouldn’t everybody have access to the Business Case?
01:05 – External people? Well, that’s kind of I’m just digging here.
01:10 – Yeah. I don’t think there should be such a thing, no. No. It doesn’t say that in the manual, no.
01:14 – This is something internal to the company. I was just testing you. Okay.
01:19 – So what you’re suggesting is good. You don’t have to share everything and they can have different meetings.
01:24 – So to do a quick recap then. There are a number of ways to solve this.
01:28 – The suppliers don’t really have to know the Business Case information, and the Project Board can choose what they want to say and focus the meetings, let’s say, on how we’re doing with the project and other issues which are showing up.
01:40 – The next scenario. We have a project for a small company and they don’t have their own Project Manager, and they decide to use the Project Manager from the supplier.
01:51 – So, I’ve got a couple of questions on this. Is it appropriate and if appropriate, is there any special advice on how they could …
02:00 – how the customer should deal in this situation if they have to use an external supplier.
02:05 – It is fine. The Project Manager can come from the customer’s side or from the supplier’s side.
02:11 – Both of them work, but it is highly recommended to bring them from the business side, from the customer’s side.
02:16 – Why? Why is that? Because that’s closer to the business aspects of the project, and if we bring them from the technical part, from the supplier part, then they will be too much involved in the technical aspects of the project. That’s always a big problem. Okay, yeah.
02:31 – For example, most people don’t do it, especially for internal projects.
02:36 – You have a project to improve one of the pieces of software you have in your company, and that is initiated by the sales department as an example and done by the IT department in your company.
02:50 – Then in most cases, in most companies, the Project Manager comes from the IT department, and that department here is the supplier, which is not the best idea.
03:01 – The best thing is to bring the Project Manager from the sales department in this example, and the person who is doing management things in the IT department will be called the Team Manager in PRINCE2. Sure, okay.
03:16 – Yeah, and for external projects, of course, we have different perspectives.
03:21 – A person can be the Team Manager in your perspective and they are your supplier, but then in their own company, they may act as a Project Manager, which is also fine.
03:30 – Is there something else that should be done to keep an extra eye on it?
03:35 – Your other question. Well, if the Project Manager comes from the supplier side, then you need to spend more time with your Project Assurance to make sure that the information you’re getting from the Project Manager is correct and What’s Project Assurance? What’s Project Assurance?
03:51 – That’s the assurance from the Project Board when you double check the information and go through the things.
03:56 – Double check information. Okay, good. Yeah, double checking.
03:58 – Good, good, good. Okay. So you said the Project Manager should normally come from the customer if at all possible, but it can be provided by the supplier and another thing as well is the supplier may not be always so quick or forthcoming with information about issues from their point of view, so that’s another thing as well.
04:20 – If we use an external supplier, then as you said, use Project Assurance because they will double check the information that comes from the Project Manager, which is important, and also there’s another option where we can look at hiring an independent Project Manager because they will be paid by the customer and they will have the customer’s interest at heart during the project as well.
04:41 – So, don’t always just go with the customer. Yeah, that’s also a good idea.
04:46 – Yeah. So next we have a stakeholder analysis exercise. Sorry. Can I interrupt you for something? Yeah.
04:50 – That’s important. Most companies think that something like that, for example, bringing hiring a person to manage a project, that’s a waste of money, that’s too expensive, but the fact is that we do that to cut costs in other places. Yes.
05:06 – That helps us spend less money on the project at the end, you know.
05:11 – Yes. It saves money in the long run. But many managers don’t understand it.
05:15 – No, correct. Unfortunately. Okay. So, yeah. Sorry.
05:20 – No problem. The next question is basically as an exercise on stakeholder analysis.
05:26 – So I want you to recognize some neutral users in a project.
05:31 – So let’s say we have a town of about 4000 people and it’s building a bypass, so it’s going to go like a half moon shape around the town, and I want you to recognize, let’s say, two groups of neutral stakeholders for the project.
05:46 – Now it’s easy, of course, to think of positive or negative, but this will take a little bit longer.
05:51 – So, stop the video and take time and write these down, okay? Yeah.
05:56 – Well, in the meantime, can you think maybe of one?
05:59 – It is really difficult, and in most cases, people who are neutral to the project are not impacted by the project and therefore they are not even stakeholders, but there are still people who can potentially be impacted, but are not, which are stakeholders but neutral, or sometimes there are both benefits and disbenefits in the project and they are balanced, so they’re neutral.
06:24 – Yeah. Probably a good one here is they’re somehow participating in the project, but they don’t see either winning or gaining from it. That could be another way to look at it.
06:33 – Yeah, of course, of course. So for this example, I can think of many stakeholders, but most of them are supporting or opposing the project.
06:44 – For example, people inside the ring may be happy because they will see that they will have a calmer neighborhood.
06:52 – Yeah. The town is quieter. Yeah. Some of the shops may not be happy because there will be fewer people inside the city passing by.
07:02 – What do you have in mind? I’ve got two or three examples, actually four examples.
07:07 – Maybe they’re not all good, but I will give them anyway.
07:11 – The first one is the town residents that perhaps don’t have a car.
07:14 – So maybe it will be interrupted at the beginning when the project is going on, but after that, it doesn’t really matter for them because they live on the north side, let’s say, of the city.
07:24 – Now on the south side, it could be happier because it’s quieter, let’s say, there.
07:29 – So, that’s one example. And, of course, we could argue with this example, it’s not a great example.
07:35 – The next one is the local newspaper. So they’re independent. They just write about everything.
07:40 – So whether they just give their feelings, either it’s supporting the project or opposing the project, but just saying that this town is having a ring road and so on.
07:50 – Next example could be the local town hall.
07:53 – So they have to do different projects throughout their term and this is an average project that they do and they should put the same intensity into it as every other project that they do.
08:04 – Of course, some politicians might like to gain something from it, so they will be seeing it, but generally they should be a neutral factor in the project and just want to do a normal professional project.
08:15 – And lastly, some motorists will not benefit. So motorists going from, let’s say, east to west, they will benefit, but motorists going from north to south, they won’t have any benefit at all.
08:27 – There may be a little bit of disruption while the ring road is being built.
08:32 – So that’s an idea, while half the ring road is being built.
08:36 – Okay, next one is a table for the CMA or Communications Management Approach document.
08:42 – So this document here is an example of the stakeholder communication table used to communicate information during the project.
08:52 – So it shows the stakeholders how the information will be given to the stakeholders, the frequency of this data and, of course, who’s responsible for this data. Okay.
09:04 – So, can you look at that table and spot something that’s wrong with it?
09:10 – I know this is quite detailed, but it’s important because there can be many questions on asking where specifically does this information go and in which section of the CMA document, so it’s important to be aware of this.
09:26 – So, it’s about the stakeholders that are identified to the way you’re going to communicate with them, the frequency of communication and the people responsible for that. Yeah.
09:41 – May I add something here before answering?
09:45 – One of the reasons that communications and stakeholder management are usually coming together is that a really effective way of engaging stakeholders and keeping them happy in the project is to have proper communications. Yeah.
09:58 – That’s how we understand their requirements.
10:01 – So the idea is that we have supporting, neutral, and opposing stakeholders in the project, and using a proper communication system like this, we want to move the opposing stakeholders to neutral state and those who are neutral into supporting, that’s the whole idea.
10:17 – We have an exercise on this later as well. Oh, that’s great.
10:21 – Okay, I’m wasting time because I’m also thinking about the table.
10:25 – Yeah. It’s okay if you don’t get it. It’s very specific, and this is one case where you’d have to probably take out the manual and go through all of the different roles, sort of go through it. Okay. It’s not something I would expect you to know.
10:38 – I don’t. So can I continue? Please. Okay, good.
10:42 – So actually if you looked at the bottom line of the table, it shows there on the bottom right, it shows that the person who will do the communication is the Project Manager.
10:53 – Now in this case, we have a spokesperson for the project who should take care of external communications while the Project Manager should take care of internal communications, and communicating with the local newspaper is a job for the spokesperson.
11:09 – So that’s just very specific there, but it a good example of the detail which this document goes into as well. Good.
11:17 – Are there questions like this in the exam?
11:21 – There are very tricky questions like this in the exam, so you have to be aware of the structure of the documents and which information goes into which part of the document. Yeah.
11:33 – Yeah, but this one, for example, it wasn’t specifically about PRINCE2, it was more about rationalizing about the Well, the reason why I put that question in there was to show the different roles in the table and how much detail that you have to go into, so you would appreciate the fact that you have a workshop to do stakeholder analysis and what type of information comes out. So that’s what we’ve done, we’ve just reviewed that information. Okay, but so learners should be ready to see questions like that.
12:03 – Yes, yeah. A manual … they can basically ask everything and some of the questions, even I go like, “Wow!” and I have to look at it open, and I go like, “Wow! They really took something there just out and they asked a question on that.” So it’s not easy, yeah.Yeah. I also have sometimes problems, yeah.
12:21 – I see the question and I’m, “What is it about? I have no idea.” So if you saw questions like that, don’t worry.
12:28 – Yeah. So let’s do one more question before coffee.
12:31 – So, staying with the bypass project, we have got two news agents who are really against the project as they both feel they will lose business.
12:39 – So, as Project Manager, as potentially the Project Manager, what would you do to try to move these news agents from opposing the project to supporting the project.
12:49 – Is there something you can do? And the reason we’re asking this question is because this is the kind of thing that happens all the time, you know.
12:54 – How you can move people who oppose a project or think they oppose the project to supporting it.
13:00 – Alright. Well, there are two aspects to it.
13:04 – The first one is that they may have a wrong impression about the project.
13:09 – Maybe they don’t understand how it works and that’s why they are opposing. Voila!
13:13 – If we give them enough information and talk to them about it, then they will be happy about it.
13:18 – Yeah, and that actually solves many of the problems.
13:22 – Yeah, and that’s one of the reasons again that the stakeholder management and communication are so tied together.
13:29 – For example, in the PMBOK guide, they used to be in the same domain together and later on in the fifth version or fourth version, they were … Separated.
13:38 – split into two different knowledge areas.
13:41 – So that’s the first one, to talk to them and explain the project, and the other thing, but still there may be some disbenefits for that group of people. Sure.
13:51 – In that case, we can work with them and have workshops internally to see if we can make some changes, add some new requirements, some new features to the project or do something outside the project to make them happier. Yeah.
14:06 – If that’s not too expensive, you know. It’s all about cost and benefit. Sure.
14:12 – Because sometimes the cost of making someone satisfied with the project is too high that you say, “Okay, leave them alone. Let them oppose the project.
14:20 – Let them do whatever they can. We will just take care of it. We will try to take care of it.” This is a good example of looking at the different options which are available as well.
14:29 – Like, for example, one news agent, one of them could be a guy that is bound to retire and he would just love to maybe get a cash incentive to make that happen.
14:38 – So he will just say, “Let them take the place. I don’t have to work anymore and everything is fine,” so they’d be happy.
14:44 – Another idea would be perhaps to give a plot of land to one of the news agents so they could have a news agency on the ring road, and then they will be happy and the guy inside the city that’s left will be happy.
14:57 – So, that’s just an example of both.
15:00 – So the same thing we do inside the projects we had in the Business Case section, we were talking about it. You must always think about different options and compare them rationally and see which one is the best. Good. Okay. Great.
15:13 – That coffee now? Oh, coffee. Okay. See you.

We’ll continue the Organization theme in the next lesson.

Scenarios/questions we’ve discussed in this lesson

Scenario: An executive wishes to have two external suppliers on the project board to ease communication. However, the executive does not wish to share information on budgets or benefits with these suppliers as they may increase their prices. As a PM, what would you advise the executive?
Scenario: The project is for a small organization that does not have its own PM, so they decide to use the PM from the supplier. Is this appropriate? What would you advise? And which role should carry out extra tasks if the project is using an external PM?
Scenario: A small town of around 4,000 people decide to build a bypass on the south side of the town. Identify two groups of neutral stakeholders.
Scenario: The following table is taken from a Communication Management approach for the town bypass project. It shows how communications will be managed during the project and with which group, the technique, the frequency, and who is responsible. Can you spot anything that may need to be changed?
Scenario – town bypass project: The only two newsagents in the town are against the bypass project as they will lose business. As a PM, what do you think you can do to get these newsagents to support the project?

Lesson 12: Organization, Part 2

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