Benjamin C. Anyacho: Help! Managing Projects and Stakeholders from Hell
1. BENJAMIN C. ANYACHO, MBA, CCM, PMP ®
June 27, 2018
Help! Managing Projects
and Stakeholders From Hell
@BENJAMINANYACHO
2. BENJAMIN C. ANYACHO, MBA, PMP
Experience
• 20+ years managing complex and complicated projects in multiple industries
• Knowledge management strategist: guide TxDOT (a large public-sector agency) and charged with
helping them understand the KM environment and implementation strategies
• Mentor 50+ Enterprise CoPs and hundreds of PMs
• Author: Knowledge Café: Creating an Environment of Knowledge Transfer and Innovation (2nd book)
Membership
• Juliana King University, Houston, Board of Trustees
• PMI Austin Chapter, President 2018
• AASHTO Committee on Knowledge Management
• National Academy of Science, Engineering and Medicine’s TRB – Committee on Knowledge &
Information Management
• International Knowledge Management Journal reviewer
Texan for 21 years
Travel around the country to give back
Proud Husband, Father, Minister, and Austenite
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4. • THESE ARE THE OPINIONS OF THE PRESENTER AND NOT
THAT OF TEXAS DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION OR
ANY OTHER ORGANIZATION THE PRESENTER REPRESENTS.
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5. IF YOU SEE FUTHER, YOU’LL LIVE LONGER!
• IDENTIFY AND DEFINE HOW A HIGH PERSONAL NET PROMOTER
SCORE CAN DISTINGUISH THEM AS A SUPERIOR LEADER IN A
POLITICALLY CHARGED ENVIRONMENT
• IDENTIFY CONTINUOUS BUY-IN PRINCIPLES TO BE USED AS TOOLS
FOR MANAGING COMPLICATED PROJECTS AND STAKEHOLDERS
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Learning Objectives
6. PURPOSE:
WARNING: TO IGNITE OUR
MINDS, STIR OUR CURIOSITIES
FOR MANAGING COMPLEXITIES
AND COMPLICATIONS
“The mind is not a vessel to be
filled but a fire to be kindled.”
Plutarch
This Photo by Unknown Author is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND
8. What is the right strategy for the
gazelle when confronted by a
cheetah?
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9. PM in 2030
“Project managers will have a vital role in developing the UK economy by 2030, as new
infrastructure is built and new technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) and
machine learning change our society.”
UK Business Reporter on 2017 survey
• 700,000 more PM jobs in the US—Talent Gap report by the PMI.
• 83% of employers report they have difficulty in finding skilled project
managers
• 76 million baby boomers will retire by 2030
• Generations of PMs in the workplace
• Millennials will job-hop 20 times through out their careers—National Education
Board
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16. New Book…
The Knowledge
Café:
Create An Environment for
Successful Knowledge
Management
Benjamin Anyacho, PMP
BenjaminAnyacho.com
Amazon.com
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RELEASE DATE: JULY 6
July 6
MANAGE AND OPTIMIZE YOUR PROJECT THROUGH
KNOWLEDGE CAFÉ
17. “
”
KNOWLEDGE CAFÉ GROUND RULES
Anyacho, (2021).
• Promotes dialogue, not debates or argument
• Creates a conversation covenant
• Voice your “crazy ideas” and let others test it
• Safe to fail
• Powerful questions
• Open and creative conversation
• Preserve conversational flow
• Everyone has a voice
• Diversity of perspective
• Small small-group conversation
• Elicits deeper understanding of issues
• Lively facilitation
• Develops and evolves thinking
• Eliminates fear
19. CONTINUOUS BUY-IN
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Continuous buy-in is keeping all the key stakeholders engaged at
the head, heart, and hand
Why do we seek for buy-in for our projects?
Have you lost some stakeholder buy-in at the cause of the project
before?
Why do stakeholders jilt or leave you in the lurch after buy-in?
20. PROCESS
Buy-in Analysis:
Ask Questions,
engage them in
risk planning;
Employ
participatory
design principle
Employ the
utility function
(Utility Theory)
Feedback: 2-
question survey
Effective
Continuous Buy-
in Feedback
Tools
Scheduled
status report
based on
stakeholder’s
preference
Acknowledge
ment and
recognition
Elevator-
speech
progress
Report
Continued
handshake
Continuous stakeholder engagement begins
with pre-initiation/ideation planning,
executing, monitoring and control to closing
Ideation Initiation Planning Execution Monitoring & Control Closing
Empathize Define Ideate Prototype Test Go Live
Check for continued stakeholder buy-in and engagement at the end of each process, milestone and status report
Continuous Buy-in = Continuous Involvement
23. YOUR VOICE MATTERS
The process of developing an appropriate approach and plan to meet
stakeholders’ information needs and requirements and available
organizational assets is called:
a.Communication requirement analysis
b. Plan stakeholder management
c. Stakeholder management plan
d. Communication Management plan
e. Plan Communication Management
Plan Communication
Management
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24. CONTINUOUS BUY-IN SUMMARY
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Finally…
• Win at the charter or lose at execution and prototype!
• No hands-off for the maintenance team
• No hands-off from key stakeholders and resisters
• No hands-off from end-users
• Think beyond project closure
• Continuous engagement until success is realized!
25. QUESTION
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You are managing a complicated project that is in the
implementation phase. Along the way, conflicts arise
among various stakeholders, including project team
members. These conflicts should usually be resolved in
favor of whom and why?
26. LEARNING AGILITY
HELLO
I AM
AGILE
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Learning agility is a mind-set and corresponding
collection of practices that allow leaders to continually
develop, grow and utilize new strategies that will
equip them for the increasingly complex problems
they face in their organizations.
--Harvard Business Review
Knowledge Café Dialogue
1. During the COVID era, how many ideas (knowledge)
do you find relevant?
2. What are the new ideas you identified in the PM
space?
3. How many people think that they were prepared
prior to the pandemic?
27. PRE-ASSIGNMENT @ CHARTER
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Project Charter with Pre-assignments and Shared Ownership
• Pre-Assignment: Project team members are selected in advance
(pre charter) based on their expertise
• Charter
• Written document issued by an authority, creating an entity (in our case
a project), and defining its rights, principles, purposes, rules and
privileges
• Announces that a new project has started and ensures your project gets
off to the right start, with management support and aligned with
organizational objectives
• Authorizes the PM to utilize organization’s resources and define scope
schedule, cost, and risk at high-level
28. REINVENT YOU
• the action or process through which
something is changed so much that it
appears to be entirely new.
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• HOW TO REINVENT
• Self-understanding
• Learning agility
• Intelligent connections
• Activate your big dream
• Give your way to success
• Café your knowledge
29. UP YOUR PERSONAL NET
PROMOTER SCORE (PNPS)
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What is your personal Net Promoter Score (pNPS)?
For a Provider: How likely is it that you would recommend our
company/product/service to a friend or colleague?
• Score of 9 to 10: Promoters, likely to exhibit value-creating behaviors
• Score of 0 to 6: Detractors
• Score of 7 to 8: Passive, in the middle between Promoters and Detractors
• NPS of −100 (everybody is a detractor)
• NPS of +100 (everybody is a promoter)
Positive NPS is good, Negative is bad
30. UP YOUR PERSONAL NET
PROMOTER SCORE (PNPS)
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What is your personal Net Promoter Score (NPS)?
• For a Project Manager: How likely is it that you would be part
of my project team in the next big project and how likely will
you invite others to join the project team?
31. “DO NOT JUDGE ME BY MY SUCCESS,
JUDGE ME BY HOW MANY TIMES I FELL
DOWN AND GOT BACK UP AGAIN.”
― NELSON MANDELA
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32. SUMMARY
• Pursue those skills with increasing value
• Have a Growth Plan, Not Goal
• Be politically intelligent
• Extend yourself, expand your network
• Give back—Mentor others
• Take a knowledge inventory today, update your resume
• Café today—learn and share
• Wisdom and understanding
• Initiate a KM program
• Document innovation that emerges because of knowledge sharing and
rejuvenation
• Write an article, book or booklet about your passion!
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33. Now, face the monster!
“There's a fine line between fishing and just standing on the
shore like an idiot.” --- Steven Wright
“None of us—not you, not me—is here to stick a toe in the
water. We’re here to make waves.” ― Alan Weiss, Million
Dollar Coaching
MAKE IT HAPPEN!
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37. REFERENCES
1. AGILE MODELLING, (MAY 23, 2017 ). ACTIVE STAKEHOLDER PARTICIPATION: AN AGILE CORE PRACTICE.
RETRIEVED FROM
HTTP://AGILEMODELING.COM/ESSAYS/ACTIVESTAKEHOLDERPARTICIPATION.HTM#STHASH.WUOBERMW.
DPUF
2. BENJAMIN FRANKLIN QUOTES, RETRIEVED FROM
HTTPS://WWW.BRAINYQUOTE.COM/QUOTES/QUOTES/B/BENJAMINFR109063.HTML
3. CNN MONEY QUIZZES, 2006, RETRIEVED FROM
HTTP://MONEY.CNN.COM/QUIZZES/2006/FORTUNE/OFFICE_POLITICS/5.HTML?SCORE=30
4. DMR. RETRIEVED FROM HTTP://EXPANDEDRAMBLINGS.COM/INDEX.PHP/YOUTUBE-STATISTICS/
5. MEETINGS IN AMERICA. RETRIEVED FROM HTTPS://E-
MEETINGS.VERIZONBUSINESS.COM/GLOBAL/EN/MEETINGSINAMERICA/USWHITEPAPER.PHP
6. PMBOK® GUIDE – SIXTH EDITION (2017). A GUIDE TO THE PROJECT MANAGEMENT BODY OF
KNOWLEDGE (PMBOK GUIDE).NEWTOWN SQUARE, PA. : PROJECT MANAGEMENT INSTITUTE, INC.,
7. PROJECT SMART. RETRIEVED FROM HTTPS://WWW.PROJECTSMART.CO.UK/USING-FEEDBACK-AS-A-
TOOL.PHP
8. REMINGTON, K & POLLACK, J ( ). COMPLEX PROJECTS. WHAT ARE THEY AND HOW CAN WE MANAGE
THEM MORE EFFECTIVELY? RETRIEVED FROM
HTTPS://OPUS.LIB.UTS.EDU.AU/BITSTREAM/10453/17630/1/2010001075OK.PDF
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