Identifying Project Stakeholders--Top Management and Accounting

Top Management

The top management group in most organizations holds a great deal of control over project managers and is in the position to regulate the project managers' freedom of action. Top management is, after all, the body that authorizes the development of the project through giving the initial "go" decision, sanctions additional resource transfers as they are needed by the project team, and supports and protects the project managers and their teams from other organizational pressures. The top management group has, as some of its key concerns, the requirement that the project be timely (the project needs to be out-the-door quickly), cost-efficient (they do not want to pay more for it than they have to), and minimally disruptive to the rest of the functional organization.

Accounting

The accountant's raison d'être in the functional organization is maintaining cost efficiency of the project teams. Accountants support and actively monitor project budgets and, as such, are sometimes perceived as the enemy by project managers. We suggest that this perception, while convenient, is very much wrong-minded. To be able to manage the project, to make the necessary decisions, and to communicate with the customer, the project manager has to stay on the top of the cost of the project in "real time." That is why an efficient cost control and reporting mechanism is needed. Accountants perform an important administrative service for the project manager. Canny project managers will work to make an ally of accountants rather than simply assume that they serve in adversarial capacities.