Delivering Projects without Organizational Support
A colleague recently asked me to write about what it’s like to deliver projects without organizational support. I practically shuddered when I began drafting this post. In my experience, a lack of support from the appropriate parties in the organization often means you will not deliver anything. Even if you present a flawless pitch at inception, assemble the perfect team, and prepare high-quality deliverables, if the organizational appetite is not there, your project ultimately won’t cross the finish line. Even if you do wind up implementing a solution, the change usually doesn’t stick, and, ultimately, the project does not have the impact you thought it would. How do you combat a situation in which your project lacks organizational support? Here are some techniques to consider.
Fully engage the project sponsor
Issue: One of the clearest signs that your project lacks support is when your sponsor is not committed to project success. The sponsor doesn’t request status updates. It’s a struggle to get them to come to meetings. Even if the project team and/or other stakeholders care deeply about the endeavor, the sponsor needs to be backing the project to ensure its successful implementation.
Potential Fixes: Insist upon sponsor engagement. It starts as simply as establishing a consistent meeting cadence. I’ve had sponsors tell me they don’t want to meet (code for: I do not care about this project whatsoever.) This is where stealthy project management techniques come in. I explain why it’s important to meet and remind them that we can cancel the meeting if there’s nothing to discuss. Then, I follow through on my promise. I’ll develop simple, straightforward agendas that are a mix of updates and requests for action. The sponsor sees that every minute of that meeting is productive. They stop hating the meetings. They also see that they are being asked to do more than sit through the same routine set of status updates each week. Giving them something to do makes them feel needed and makes it more likely that they will contribute to the project.
If your sponsor is still resisting involvement, escalate the problem to your leadership and their leadership. I usually frame this discussion along these lines—“we can certainly keep doing this project, but it’ll be a waste of your time and money if you don’t have a dedicated sponsor.” Then, I’ll give examples of what it means to be dedicated and specific examples of why the behavior I’m seeing is not fitting the bill. Highlighting the risks of project failure usually gets people’s attention—whether it’s to kill the project or to rejuvenate it with an active leadership presence.
If your sponsor is engaged with the project team, make sure they are also engaged with the other project stakeholders. Even an engaged sponsor can inadvertently kill a project by failing to brief the appropriate stakeholders about its progress. Establish a cadence early in the project for communicating with relevant stakeholder groups. Continually ask if there’s anyone missing to ensure you don’t overlook someone, and strive to communicate with everyone that may be impacted.
Sometimes, despite your best efforts, proselytizing falls on deaf ears. How do you operate knowing the project is doomed and no one cares? In these situations, I try to focus on how we can benefit from that project regardless. Maybe we can employ some creativity on a deliverable that no one cares about and repurpose those ideas for a future endeavor. Maybe we can focus on building a strong team culture that takes pride in our functional delivery. If you’re willing to have a positive attitude and employ a little creativity, you can make the best of a situation that is less than ideal.
Prepare the workforce for the change
Issue: The workforce is not receptive to change, and the organization hasn’t properly scoped the project to see if the chosen solution was appropriate to begin with. Or, the organization has selected the appropriate solution, but it fails to communicate why that solution is preferred. Therefore, the workforce doesn’t know about the change, doesn’t see its value, and/or doesn’t understand how the change fits into the organization’s broader strategy.
Potential Fixes: Develop a change management plan for the organization that describes how you will prepare for the change from a business case and readiness perspective and also how you will communicate that change to the workforce. Your workforce communications should identify short-term, medium-term, and long-term benefits of the change. People need to understand what is in it for them, and that includes the short-term gains as well as the long-term plan for how the change will be implemented within the organization.
Chances are this isn’t the first time you’ve had to deliver a project that created change within the organization. If your projects have failed in the past, the workforce may be experiencing change fatigue. Since previous change attempts have failed, they don’t trust that this change will stick, so they fail to take the project seriously. To mitigate this risk, figure out how you can structure project activities to generate some quick wins early in the project so that people can see that you followed through on your commitments. This builds trust and cultivates project buy-in, making it more likely that your project will be successful.
