Managing Project Stakeholders--4. Develop Solutions

There are two important points to note about this step. First, developing solutions means precisely that: It means creating an action-plan to address, as much as we are able, the needs of the various stakeholder groups in relation to the other stakeholder groups. This step constitutes the stage in which the project manager, together with the team, seeks to manage the political process. What will work in dealing with top management? In implementing that strategy, what reaction am I likely to elicit from the accountant? The client? The project team? Asking these questions helps the project manager develop solutions that acknowledge the interrelationships of each of the relevant stakeholder groups.

As a second point, remember to do your political homework first, prior to developing solutions (Grundy, 1998). Note the point (stage five) at which this step is introduced. Too often, project managers fall into the trap of attempting to manage a process with only fragmentary or inadequate information. The philosophy of "Ready, Fire, Aim" seems to permeate many of our approaches to stakeholder management. The result of such an attitude is one of perpetual fire-fighting during which the project manager operates much as a pendulum, swinging first from resolving one crisis to having to address another stakeholder related problem. Both pendulums and these project managers share one characteristic: they never reach a goal. The process of putting out one fire creates a new conflagration. Its "solution" sparks yet another blaze.

Managing stakeholders requires project teams to create and maintain multiple strategies that provide project managers with maximum flexibility. The more we are able to refine and use strategies as they are appropriate, rather than relying on one approach regardless of the circumstances, the better and more adeptly we can create and manage constructive relations with project stakeholders.