Projects with unavailable project customers

When the definition and approach derived for a project isn’t the problem, it is often a lack of qualified, knowledgeable business personnel. This issue manifests itself with everything from the “you should know what I want” approach from project customers, to a blatant absence of project customers in project proceedings because they are “too busy.” This causes project managers to try to proceed with a significant handicap. A large portion of the project management community try to “press on” in this situation despite the lack of customer participation, surmising – inaccurately – that the organization will be better off if they at least create “something” for a project deliverable. The actual results are usually catastrophic; skeptical project team members that do not trust the product they are creating, a totally alienated customer that receives a product for which they feel no ownership, and a sponsor with a lack of confidence in the product and project management because of “poor” delivery.

Because these disastrous results are inevitable when knowledgeable business representatives are not part of the project, the only real way to respond in a situation like this is to become the ultimate hurdle and recommend the project be stopped until appropriate business personnel can be leveraged. This recommendation will bring a significant amount of attention to the situation which is exactly what you need to solve the problem!

When a project manager escalates due to lack of business resources, a business representative that doesn’t have the appropriate level of experience will sometimes be assigned to assist the project team. In short, they can’t successfully speak for their peers, or the process area they represent. Moving forward with these partially-knowledgeable individuals is just a nicer looking path to the same terrible conclusion. The project should be stopped until this situation can be rectified.

So, as project managers we are most often looked upon to eliminate hurdles, and drive projects to success. Sometimes however, it is most suitable that we become a “hurdle” instead, and ultimately help the project – and our sponsoring businesses - be successful in the end.

Bob McGannon is a Founder and Principal of MINDAVATION, a company providing project management training and consulting, leadership workshops and team building programs throughout North America, Europe and Australia. Bob can be reached at MINDAVATION via the web at WWW.MINDAVATION.COM or by calling 866-888-MIND (6463).

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