How Good Extreme Project Management Is in Managing Project Stakeholders - Research Proposal Example

eXtreme Project Management: How good it is in managing project stakeholders? Abstract eXtreme Project Management is a radical approach to project management and similar to other Agile-based approaches, it encourages project sponsors to participate in product development. Various literatures suggest that stakeholder management is critical to the success of the project as internal and external stakeholders’ behaviour or actions can greatly influence the outcome of the project. eXtreme Project Management heavily depends on stakeholder participation but there is no clear evidence that it is actually good in managing stakeholders and contributing to project success. For this reason, a study of issues surrounding stakeholder management is being offered to clarify and understand the true nature of eXtreme Project Management method and its effectiveness in managing stakeholders. Table of Contents Contents Contents 3 1. Introduction 1.1 General Introduction A project is generally viewed as a unique undertaking to produce a standard compliant new product or service while project management is the discipline that one must apply to the project (Knutson & Bitz, 1991). Projects exist in every industry and they have different types, sizes, and complexity (Frigenti & Comminos, 2002) and similarly, project management can be found in every profession such as health care, consulting, banks, governments, IT, and so on (Kerzner, 2009). Projection of ideas and activities into new undertakings is one common characteristic of projects to reduce failure and its costly consequences (Flouris & Lock, 2008). The purpose of project management is to predict as much difficulties and problems as possible and create a plan that can control the occurrences of these problems and ensure successful completion of the project despite the risks (Lock, 2007). Project management on the other hand is commonly applied to achieve project requirements using knowledge, skills, tools, and techniques (Lewis, 2007). Project management includes not only planning and coordination but also control of complex and diverse activities. This is usually done by applying and integrating project management processes such project initiation, planning, execution, monitoring, and control (Lewis, 2007). It also involves recording, data collection, effective communication, and appreciation of each step in the project management process (Haugan, 2011). However, not all project management approaches are employing similar technique since these are mostly associated with traditional project management process and viewed as inapplicable to modern project requirements. For instance, the Agile methods of project management often clash with traditional views of project management, as the latter appears flawed and irrelevant in today’s project requirements. In contrast, traditional project management supporters believed that Agile is based on speculation rather than established best practices (Zannier et al, 2004). According to Abrahamson (2008), traditional project management focuses on predictive planning while Agile is more interested in adaptive planning and built-in feedback mechanism (p.2). Sobh (2008), on the other hand view traditional project management as a methodology that is heavily dependent on processes, linear development cycles, waterfall model, and predictability of project activities, which often tend to concentrated on process compliance to achieve project control (p.379). In contrast, Rico et al. (2009), see Agile project management as combination of traditional and non-traditional approaches such as project integration, scope, time, cost, quality, human resources, communications, risk, and procurement management. The difference is that Agile is using just-in-time project management principle and a series of iterations that by themselves are self-contained mini-projects. In addition, Agile methods have built-in project management frameworks such as release and sprint planning that can similarly manage integration, scope, time, cost, quality, and others effectively (p.47). eXtreme Project Management is an Agile method like Scrum, Lead Development, DSDM or Dynamic Systems Development Method, Feature Driven Development, and Adaptive Software Development. Doug De Carlo developed it and it is designed to counter changes occurring during the project. This type of project management work under the principle that changes is inevitable during the project and for this reason, the approach use a number of iterations until it identify the most viable solution. Moreover, eXtreme Project Management encourages the participation of the customer until the solution is found or when the customer decided to terminate the project (Hass, 2008). eXtreme Project Management is different from traditional project management approaches in many ways. For instance, traditional approaches mostly view projects from design to delivery while eXtreme look at a project more broadly from concept to payoff (DeCarlo, 2004). Another significant difference is that eXtreme Project Management do not view project management as an ideal system but expect some problems along the way. For instance, people often start a project with a goal in mind and plan to follow. However, during the execution of the project, things may change due to some unexpected problems arising from supply shortage, resignation of key decision-maker, labour strikes, and therefore, project plan will change and goal may be adjusted to suit the present situation. eXtreme Project Management recognizes this reality and expects that processes needs to be constantly directed and goals are subject to change (Blake, 2009). Traditional project management is often focus on meeting agreed deadlines, budget, and satisfying the scope and objectives of the project. In contrast, eXtreme Project Management, is more focus on informing and consulting stakeholders about the project status, changes in the scope and objectives, the variation on the cost and benefits, and compliance to the agreed product quality (Thomsett, 2002). In eXtreme Project Management, a stakeholder is someone who can affect or influence the success or downfall of the project. It can internal or external and involve anyone who can provide an input to the project such as products, services, funding, approvals, resources, and other projects that may be relevant or may contribute to the success of the current project. Moreover, stakeholders are also people who may be affected by the project when it is completed or the end users. However, the most important stakeholders are those who would manage the project or the ones that will undergo the extreme demands of the project (DeCarlo, 2004). Stakeholders are a critical factor in this project management model thus, it is essential to indentify which stakeholders can directly affect the project success. For instance, critical stakeholders can prevent the completion or the success of the project while essential stakeholders can delay the project completion or achieving the level of success before and after implementation. In contrast, unless they are included in some part of the project, non-essential stakeholders are interest parties that have no direct impact on the project (Thomsett, 2002). Stakeholders are the human side of project management thus, identification and management of project stakeholders is vital to the success of the project. This is because a well-planned and properly executed project can still fail without a harmonious relationship between stakeholders and the project manager (Brandon, 2005). External stakeholders may include project sponsors, business owners, customers and their employees and financiers while the project manager, project team, sub-contractors, employees, and stockholders are considered internal (Brandon, 2005). According to Kendrick (2010), it is best to list down all project stakeholders or create a stakeholder map (see Figure 1 below) during the project initiation. Include their needs in the project’s communication planning, discuss the project with stakeholders that will have a direct impact on the project success, and explore other ways of improving relationship with stakeholders (p.231). Moreover, according to one study on project methodologies by Huijbers et al. (2004), the principle adopted by eXtreme project management particularly the one promoting the participation of customers in the development phases may not be feasible simply because they will not agree to be on-site all the time. Another is the fact that sending an employee to the development team full-time will incur additional cost. In such cases, such project management approach may not work as expected and will be abandoned by stakeholders (p.17). Figure 1- Sample Stakeholders Map Ninety percent of project manager’s time according to Sudhakar (2010) is being spent on communication with stakeholders such as updating the senior management and project sponsors with the progress and status of the project. Similarly, the project manager also spent considerable time communicating with vendors, suppliers, consultants, and others (p.110). Without an effective stakeholder’s management, the project may become out of control due to pressures coming from changes being initiated by project stakeholders who are questioning the integrity of the original plan. Moreover, there may be a power struggle between project management and project sponsors that could infect the entire project (Shelford & Remillard, 2003). It is therefore necessary for the project manager and the project management approach selected a particular undertaking to have an appropriate strategy in managing input from different stakeholders while maintaining the balance between other project needs (PM4DEV, 2007). Maintaining a good relationship with stakeholders and allowing them to participate can provide a number of advantages. For instance, their involvement can help the project implementers to better understand their preferences resulting to products that closely meet their needs. Similarly, if the stakeholders are dissatisfied with the progress of the project, they can immediately ask the project manager to redirect the course of the project towards a direction that is more compatible with their needs (Gibbs, 2007). eXtreme Project Management is a radical shift in thinking about projects and their management (DeCarlo, 2004). It is an adaptive project management approach that goes beyond technical scheduling and planning (Hass, 2008). However, since project management is also about managing stakeholders, can eXtreme Project Management capable of effectively managing them despite the challenges and conflicts that may be encounter before and after project implementation? 1.2 Aims and Objectives The aim of this study is to understand how eXtreme Project Management work particularly when managing or satisfying project stakeholders’ expectations. Moreover, the study aims to understand the benefits of effectively managing both internal and external stakeholders and its contribution to project success. The objectives of this study are to gather all relevant information regarding eXtreme Project Management and successfully analyzed its contribution to project management particularly in the area of stakeholder management and quality of products. 1.3 Research Questions The following are research questions that will be answered by the proposed study. a. What are the difference between traditional structured project management methodologies and eXtreme Project Management? b. Who are the primary and important stakeholders in eXtreme Project Management? c. How this group of stakeholders are being managed compared to other less important groups? d. Is eXtreme Project Management better than traditional approaches in terms of stakeholders’ satisfaction? If not, what is the problem? 2. Literature Review Contemporary project management suggest that managing stakeholders is an essential process. For instance, project management should consider establishing good communication with project stakeholders to satisfy their needs and requirements. Having extremely diverse stakeholders is also a problem since along with time pressures, such stakeholders can create unwanted relationship conflicts, which many believe is detrimental to project success. For instance, when considerable time is spent arguing, the less energy will be devoted to work and if the conflict resulted to a more personal conflict, they will be lees committed to the project goals and objectives (Kloppenborg, 2008). Doug DeCarlo, the creator of eXtreme Project Management claimed that his project management approach could handle stakeholders effectively through various approaches. For instance, key steps such as partitioning stakeholders can be taken to reduce the size of their stake in the project and the intensity of impact they can bring. Another important step is making sure that the most critical of stakeholders are taking care of and agreeing to the win conditions of the project. More importantly, enter into partnership with stakeholders who are expected to provide resources, services, and other needs of the project (DeCarlo, 2004). However, it is important to note that these strategies are formulated by DeCarlo himself and do not in any way prove that they are effective in real situations. In traditional project management approaches, managing stakeholder is also a great concern. However, unlike DeCarlo’s eXtreme Project Management, the problem with stakeholders are confronted with eight important activities in the stakeholder management process such as identifying stakeholders, gathering information about the stakeholders, determining the stakeholder’s position relevant to the project, and determining the stakeholder’s strengths and weaknesses. The project manager can then use this information to develop an effective stakeholder management strategy, be able to predict their reaction and preferences, implementation of stakeholder strategy in real situation, and evaluate the results of the strategy (Taylor, 2004). Using simple analysis, both approaches are convincing for reasons that they both promote healthy relationships with stakeholders, which is critical to the success of the project. According to Ajani (2002), the primary objective of stakeholders’ management is to highlight the project implementer’s usefulness and value to the project stakeholders (p.99). In other words, the project needs to show off the accomplishments stakeholders expect and future ideas that they will likely approve. This is the reason why most companies select good people for their project team, as it is important to have a good human relationship with various stakeholders. For instance, according to Desmond (2010), stakeholders are generally people who care and with vested interest in the project, thus it is important to know and understand them particularly those that have agendas other than seeing the project to succeed such as people opposing the project due to political belief (Introduction). Similarly, other stakeholders may have a different opinion on project risk and may opt to question the project’s execution all the way (Kendrick, 2009). The success of the project is in the output and because an output-oriented project is one with a defined and agreed product, it will have a defined scope and control procedures. Moreover, since the primary objective of a project is to satisfy the expectations of stakeholders, there should be a common understanding of the product required and the quality expectations for them (OGC, 2009). Agile methods like eXtreme Project Management are designed with stakeholders in mind and one of the key to Agile project’s success is active stakeholder participation (Aguanno, 2005). The Agile method suggests that at the minimum, project stakeholders must be involved with the project team; they should make decisions, and provide information. In one study conducted by the Standish Group, results shows that one of the success factors is user involvement. Similarly, a study of about 1,000 projects shows that the largest contributing factor to project failure is related to waterfall practices such as creation of detailed requirements specification so early in the lifecycle (Aguanno, 2005: 148). According to DeCarlo (2004), in eXtreme Project Management, one of the most important project stakeholders is eXtreme Project Sponsor since the project is doomed without them. These are the people with strong vested interest in the project and part of the core team with the responsibility to ensure that the business benefits of the project are attained. Another is the customer, which at the minimum should be happy with the result of the project (p.89). However, although it may be acceptable to think that relationship with these stakeholders are important, there are no evidence presented to suggest that they indeed work and applicable to every project. Moreover, project methodologies according to Charvat (2003) have their individual shortcomings and eXtreme Project Management is not exemption. For instance, some methodologies may be too abstract; does not contain evidence to support them, not functional or cannot address some crucial areas such QA, testing, and others; does not follow industry standards and best practices, and does not provide performance metrics (p.5). Another is the possibility that methods depending heavily on iterations or continuous testing may not produce quality products and acquire support from management (Khosrow-Pour, 2006). Clearly, literature suggests that being involved with eXtreme Project Management is also being involved with extreme politics, which is not an easy task. Although it may be easy to identify the owners, customers, shareholders, and stakeholders in an extreme project, determining the level of individual commitment to the project may be difficult to achieve. Moreover, it may also include extreme negotiations and too much communication, which may be tiring for the project manager. Problems may also arise when hiring the right people since loyalty and commitment may not be obvious until the latter part of project execution. It is therefore necessary to investigate and find out the real situation when such project management method is implemented. More importantly, the study should determine the extent to which stakeholders are managed and how effective they are in keeping these stakeholders happy. 3. Methodology The literature does contain much information on the actual benefits of eXtreme Project Management particularly on issues surrounding stakeholder management. For this reason, this study intend to research using qualitative method and gather data from field survey with specially designed questionnaires. Unlike quantitative research, the design and variables in quantitative method is flexible and more focus on the meaning of human reactions, the process by which it is achieved, and the feelings behind the action (Berg & Latin, 2004). According to Bless et al. (2006), asking people what they know can yield a number of benefits as they might talk about the practical knowledge and understanding of the phenomenon and share the social reality of things to the researcher (p.44). It is thus sensible for this study to use the qualitative method, as the purpose of the research is gather relevant information about people involved in projects. Moreover, the unexplained contribution of eXtreme Project Management to stakeholder management can be determined by actually talking to these stakeholders and other individuals directly managing an “extreme” project. The method of data collection is qualitative interview as it is particularly useful in finding a person’s attitude and values which in most occasions are difficult to obtain through formal questionnaires. According to Seale (2004), open-ended and flexible questions are more advantageous that closed questions as it provide better access to a person’s views, beliefs, understanding of events and circumstances, and honest opinion (p.182). Although such method is time consuming, some of the known advantage of unstructured interviews is its ability to probe complex issues, enable the researcher to have a general understanding of the problem, and uncovered issues may be use to guide future inquiries (Klenke, 2008). The target population are selected individual currently participating in eXtreme projects such as sponsors, project manager, customer, and alike. The methods of data analysis are content analysis and open coding which are common approaches to qualitative data analysis. The purpose is to reduce qualitative responses into a set of themes that can be use to distinguish and summarize responses (Kelly, 2009). Content analysis will enable this study to get an objective account of verbal, visual, and written text provided by the interview participants. Moreover, after the codes and categories are determined, the frequency of occurrence can be measured and the validity, reliability, and generalisability of facts can be established (Sloan, 2006). Like other research methodologies, the qualitative method is also subject to limitations such as bias, resource and time constraints, and problems arising from survey participant’s reluctance to answer critical questions (Green & Thorogood, 2004). However, this study believes that with commitment, honesty, and systematic data gathering and analysis such limitations will be reduced. 4. Rationale behind the Research and Expected Results As evidenced by the lack of sufficient data to prove that eXtreme Project Management can actually handle or manage stakeholders effectively, the rationale behind the research is the opportunity to find and present the missing link between project success and stakeholders management under an Agile inspired project management method. As mentioned earlier, the literature does not contain sufficient data that can serve as reference or testimony to the effectiveness of this project management method in terms of stakeholders’ management thus investigation of the phenomenon must be conducted in its natural environment – a currently running eXtreme project or people that have directly experienced such project management method in the past. Since eXtreme Project Management is being applied in various industries, there are a number of benefits that may be obtained by establishing the facts behind stakeholders’ management that include additional knowledge and clear direction for project manager and members of the project team, better project decisions, reduced project cost, and increased success rate for future projects. Moreover, extreme or traditional, stakeholder management is a critical issue in project management thus result of this study can universally applied. It is generally expected that upon successful completion of this research, views about eXtreme Project Management will change particularly on how people perceived its effectiveness in terms of stakeholder management, how it actually contributes to the project success, and its applicability on future projects. 5. Time Table Task ID Description Duration Week 1 Week 2 Week 3 Week 4 Week 5 Week 6 1 Submission/Approval of Dissertation Proposal 2 Preparation of Survey Materials 3 Field Survey 4 Data Analysis 5 Writing the Dissertation 6 Draft Submission 7 Final Submission/Approval 6. 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