Case Study: Understanding Expectations II

In the first installment of this case study we learned how an Enterprise Project Office (EPO) was established after an independent assessment indicated that a company failed to meet financial performance targets because of a perceived lack of IT governance and accountability.

During the initial engagement meeting the project manager was tasked with three main objectives:

1. Advance the progress on designated high risk projects.
2. Mentor EPO Staff
3. Provide input on best practices and process efficiency for the EPO.

During the first week the project manager met with the EPO staff and two key functional IT managers who were responsible for systems and content development.

The EPO staff was noticeably demoralized. During the recent reorganization. Experienced Product Managers formerly distributed among functional IT units were reassigned to the Project Management Office, demoted to the role of Project Coordinators, and given ninety days to show progress toward project management competence.

The day after the consultant project manager arrived, the CIO resigned. It was clear that the V.P. of the EPO and his Program manager were in an escalating and adversarial relationship with many of the other managers in the company. During subsequent inteverviews the project manager found the other Sr. IT functional managers to be professional and polite yet consistently guarded and noncommittal. Business unit managers were noticably resistant to the idea of the EPO and consolidated governance.

Meanwhile the EPO Program Manager focused the project coordinators on creating status reporting templates and other document templates. This effort was ongoing throughout the tenure of the consultant. As an example, weekly meetings were scheduled, during which, detailed discussions about how the status templates were created (e.g. font size and colors) often dominated the agenda. Often the Program Manager would direct her subordinates to produce various levels of detailed status reporting which were due immediately without advance notice or guidance as to the reason or audience for these ad-hoc requests. The program manager also repeatedly insisted on having her staff "drive" the projects to which they were assigned. Although she never explicitly defined how exactly this was to be accomplished, most of the project coordinators assumed this meant facillitating working meetings and maintaining an issues list along with meeting minutes.

Historically, the functional IT managers ran the working meetings in the company with the support of their corresponding business unit representatives. When the project coordinators were tasked with meeting faciltitation, the other participants percieved beaurocratic interference and as a result meetings became ineffective and progress slowed.

Additionally, because standards and processes were being designed prematurely, no explicit internal or external policy was in place, no measurements were defined, and no clear overall plan was being communicated internally, the EPO itself was operating in a chaotic unstructured manner!

The following week ,the V.P. of the EPO and his Program Manager engaged the other senior executives in explaining their vision of how, by increasing IT accountabilty and oversight, IT committments could be monitored which would subsequently provide feedback to executive decision makers in order to better prioritize business initiatives. Unfortunately, these discussions also were characterized by a focus on explaining proposed EPO process methodology which was, at the time, theoretical.

Throughout the next few weeks, the project manager also became familiar with the people, processes, and systems involved in his assigned projects. He obtained the project budget authorization and drafted a project charter which contained his understanding of the project purpose, stakeholders, schedule, and high level business requirements. After attending several working meetings and listening intently to both the overt content and subtext, he was able to confidently approach the IT Managers, who were initially resistant to his presence.

Using the draft of the project charter as a vehicle to initiate a conversation with the Sr. IT managers, the consultant project manager involved the IT Mangers in a productive discussion about the scope of the project. The project manager focused on how to be helpful to these managers without compromizing the mission of the EPO. He framed the discussion by empathizing with the IT Manager's position, explaining that; it is becoming common across all industries for shareholders to demand promised benefits by executives in exchange for invested funds. In addition, the project manager listened to the manager's concerns , asked how best to engage with each manager's staff, and offered to include them in decisions affecting status reporting. The project manager followed up on his intention by creating a steering committee that was composed of key managers who were both responsible and impacted by the project outcome.

This constructive intervention was only attempted after a level of trust and credibility was developed between the project manager and the formerly resistant/adversarial managers. It was also facilitated by the fact that the project manager was an outside consultant, and therefore had a measure of implied independence, and perhaps a percieved ability to influence the status quo.

The project manager performed the following steps in order to turn potentially difficult management situation into a portfolio of solid working relationships.

1. The project manager committed to his intention of being helpful, despite formidable political obstacles.

2. The project manger listened, and learned the business, explored external and internal environments, understood implied and explicit assumptions, and remained objective, operating within the current reality of the situation.

3. The project manager was willing to learn and stay open-minded in order to access possiblities that would have been hidden, had he relied on his past experience alone.

4. The project manager realized that everything he does within the client system is an intervention. Accordingly he was careful not to make premature reccomendations.

5. The project manager understood that it is the client who is the ultimate owner of the problem and the solution. In this way he was able to maintain objectivity and direct and influence events while avoiding taking on too much responsibility without appropriate authority.

6. The project manager focused on the important relationship issues and prioritized his activities so that he would be most effective by working through and with others.

As a result, in a very short time, the project manager was able to obtain needed guidance from potential adversaries who were willing to help him navigate a new and unfamilar client environment. By gradually building trust and credibility the project manager successfully transitioned from unknown entity to trusted advisor which in turn enabled him to advance progress on the high-risk projects that he was assigned.

The project manager set an example for the EPO staff. In this way, they were able to learn at their own pace, in their own style, as they formed their own opinions about the project manager's credibility and effectiveness.


In conclusion, this case study points out how project managers must work to expose and balance implicit as well as explicit expectations of multiple stakeholders under schedule deadlines. Also as the example presented here illustrates, empathy and relationship building skills are often critical when attempting to influence project outcomes without direct authority.