Project managers rarely have authority. They are usually resigned to the completion dates that are dictated to them or have to produce the grandest of expectations with limited resources. What most project managers need to understand is that influence is their greatest power. Selling your ideas to the project team is what will increase your chances of project success. The ability to influence and sell is now a key quality sought after in project management candidates.
Search for the word “influence” on Amazon.com under business management, and you will find over 1,300 titles of books that promise to teach you the power or science of influence. To be successful in these times, project managers must tap into this power and learn how to make a difference in their environment.
Why is this so important? The answer resides in another question: why do projects most often fail? Do they fail because the unique products, services, or results they attempt to create do not get completed? The answer usually is “no.” They fail because they cannot create the product, service, or result in the time frame or for the cost allotted.
Who is ultimately responsible for setting the date and budget? No, not the executives — the project manager is! When the project manager accepts the date and budget from the executive, he or she is in a sense agreeing to it. This is why sales skills and influence are such powerful assets to project managers today.
Selling the Executive
A project can fail within the first 10 minutes of its lifetime. In fact, more projects fail on their first day than many people realize. The primary cause is when the project is assigned, the due date and budget normally are assigned at the same time without planning. This is the first area where influence should be applied.
There are several questions that can be asked in the first meeting to help your project to be successful:
- Is this a mandatory due date, or is this the desired due date?
- How flexible is the budget?
- If we have to make a decision to spend more to hit the date or slide the date to preserve cost, which would be the better decision?
- What assumptions were made when choosing this date and/or budget?
This is where the sales techniques of qualifying your customer come into play. Salespeople need to make sure that the clients or customers they are talking to are the decision makers, have budgets for their products, and identify pain points that their products will alleviate. The same technique should be applied to the executive. Qualifying the date and budget will allow a better understanding of the constraints on the project.
Selling the Team
Just as important as selling the executives is selling the team on why they should want to deliver this project for a particular cost on a particular date. In a recent survey of employees on work satisfaction, the employees ranked “feeling in on things” as having a greater influence on satisfaction than salary or benefits. Many project managers forget to sell the team on why the project is important and to remind the employees how important their roles are to the project.
Simply releasing a task list and demanding dates does not cut it in today’s environment. The team must buy into the project and understand how they will make a difference. The project manager can control this influence and communicate with them. In essence, just like a salesperson, he or she is creating a need that only his or her product can fulfill. Project managers must sell the team to create passion and a desire to complete the project rather than simply assigning work.
Getting to ''Yes'' for All of Your Needs
The key to obtaining what a project manager needs to be successful on a project is research. If you were selling a product, you would:
- Research other products to determine those that shared the same market.
- Determine what differentiates your product from others.
- Create facts and buzz to make the buyer desire your product.
In the end, project managers need to learn how to elicit a “yes” from any of the stakeholders on their projects. This goes beyond Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence People. This is how to get what you need and deliver successful projects. On any of your current projects, make sure you can answer the following questions:
- Why is this project important?
- Do I have everything I need to be successful?
- Do I understand where this project fits into the overall strategy of the company?
- Am I passionate about the project and excited about what it represents?
About the Author
Rick A. Morris is an author, a consultant, a mentor, a sought-after speaker, and a project management advocate. Rick is currently the chief operating officer of Highmark Technology. In addition, he is the president of the Birmingham chapter of PMI and owner of a nonprofit organization that promotes project management to charities and other nonprofit organizations called The Ramsey Foundation.
In August Rick will have two books released: The Everything Project Management Book published by Adams Media and Project Management That Works! published by Amacom. He resides in Birmingham, AL, with Stephanie, his wife of 12 years, daughter Ramsey, and son Remo. Rick can be reached at rmorris@highmarktechnology.com, www.highmarktechnology.com, or www.rickamorris.com.
