Financial
Strategic Project Management
SPOMP:
An Inspiring 9-page Guide to Effective Project Implementation
that goes Beyond Project Planning, Scheduling, and Control

Financial Strategic Project Management SPOMP © 2012 Leon M. Hielkema
Financial
Strategic Project Management
SPOMP
As an experienced internal finance/accounting consultant, project manager, program manager, change
agent, or change manager, you are responsible to implement strategic change in your organization. How
to create support and buy-in for the organizational change that you want to realize? How to deal with
resistance to change?
This crisp nine-page PDF summary of the forthcoming business book “Financial Strategic Project Man-
agement SPOMP” (expected October 2012) describes how to successfully implement a finance/accounting
program, project, or policy, from the inside out. It introduces five new SPOMP strategies that will help
you to “seduce” stakeholders into change. You will be challenged to:
S use office politics and networking as a means to stakeholder management
P plan and design internal communications to influence people
O let the steering committee work for you
M use project marketing to sell your change ideas
P prove project success with KPIs
A SPOMPed project means a successful organizational change, an effective implementation, a shorter
project duration, more enthusiastic project team members, and for you as an internal consultant an even
more successful image within your organization.
Praises for “Financial Strategic Project Management SPOMP”:
“Finally a book that not only tells you how important engagement is, but also shows you how to actually create
it. Highly recommended.” — B. Johnson, PMP, Chicago, IL
“Financial and accounting projects are becoming increasingly strategic. This truly eye-opening guide shows
you how to develop your soft skills.” — H. Whitmore, New York, NY
“One of the few books in this field that covers politics.” — Ch. Leibovitz, Staten Island, NY
“Logically structured, to-the-point, and a real pleasure to read!” — TJ. Baxter, Wichita, KS
“A refreshing and inspiring view on the project called change!” — J. Harris, Chicago, IL
Continued on Page 8
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Financial Strategic Project Management SPOMP © 2012 Leon M. Hielkema
Five Strategies to
“Seduce” Stakeholders
The goal of every strategic project is to successfully implement change in your organization. Research
shows that only one third of all initiated projects are successful in meeting this goal. Among the
success factors, the formal project management technique (for example PMBOK, PRINCE2, MSP,
Agile, etc.) that is applied only accounts for 6% of the project’s success. The two most important
success factors, however, are support from the client and support from the internal users, which
together account for 34% of the project’s success. But how can you successfully create this support?
Financial Strategic Project Management SPOMP How to Seduce Friends
contains five strategies that are very powerful in In my workshops, I always start with the example
creating support and buy-in for your change project of seducing a group of friends to go skiing in
or initiative. Combined, the strategies will create January. Some friends will support your vacation
support by seducing (as in alluring or enticing) plans, while others would rather go on a summer
stakeholders into the change that you want to vacation. Some friends have children and prefer
realize. Seducing stakeholders means that you to go during a school break. Some friends prefer
influence them to become positive about the change. to go later in the year because January is a busy
Creating this positive attitude will significantly month at work for them, and some friends do not
increase your chances of a successful project. want to go on vacation at all.
The key question is: How to seduce these friends to
People Need to Change
support your vacation plans?
Every project results in various people within the
organization having to change their behavior, at-
titude, or working method. For example, a proj- Every group of friends has informal leaders.
ect to introduce a new Management Information Probably, you will first try to seduce these informal
System leads to a new way of working. A project leaders. If they are convinced, then others will
aimed to simplify a certain form leads to people follow. You will also try to seduce those friends
having to learn how to fill out the new form in a who are able to influence the informal leaders
different way than they are used to. A project
of the group. You will try to seduce them by
aimed to downsize operations leads to various
communicating frequently about how fantastic a
people having to adjust the way they currently
skiing trip would be, or how it has been a long
work. The more strategic the project, the more
fundamental and invasive the organizational time since you all went skiing together.
change is that you have to realize.
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Financial Strategic Project Management SPOMP © 2012 Leon M. Hielkema
Furthermore, by letting your friends know that to understand the politics in your organization to
six mutual friends have already signed up for the be able to determine which stakeholders need to
trip, you are demonstrating the potential success be seduced. You need to frequently communicate
of your vacation plans. You can make your plans with these stakeholders in order to continuously
sound even more favorable by communicating that influence their perception about the change that
you have found the perfect spot for the perfect you want to realize. You will have to convince
price, but that this option expires within five days. stakeholders that change is inevitable and that
your advice is the best option to implement this
change. It is important to sell your project in order
Who Are You? to tempt stakeholders to favor the change you are
Presumably, you are between the ages of 35 and
recommending. Also, to back up your arguments,
50 and well experienced in managing complex stra-
you will have to prove during the project that your
tegic projects. You work in the finance/accounting
department of a knowledge-intensive organization,
approach potentially will be successful in realizing
with many highly educated professionals. The organizational change. In a nutshell, if you want
project teams that you lead comprise five to 10 to seduce stakeholders, then you need to SPOMP
members and the projects have an average your project.
duration of three to 12 months. You have developed
your own change and project management style
which, above all, should remain as such. However,
SPOMP Your Project
you are looking for new insights that will make you
The letters SPOMP are an abbreviation of the five
even more successful in implementing strategic
change in your organization.
strategies that are presented in Financial Strategic
Project Management SPOMP. These five strategies
are very powerful in seducing the client, internal
users, and other stakeholders. Each strategy is a
How to Seduce Stakeholders building block to become even more successful
Seducing stakeholders works in a similar way as in implementing the organizational or behavioral
seducing friends to go on a skiing trip. You need change that you want to realize.
S S = Select Your Stakeholders
P = Plan to Communicate
P O M
M O = Organize Influence
M = Market Your Change Initiative
P P = Prove Potential Success
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Financial Strategic Project Management SPOMP © 2012 Leon M. Hielkema
Select Your Stakeholders (S) realize in your organization. Financial Strategic
Office politics always plays a major role when Project Management SPOMP describes how you
you want to realize change in your organization. can utilize such a body to successfully create
Politics is often viewed as a negative force on this support. You will learn how to strategically
the project, but you can turn it into a positive. organize your inf luence in such a way that the
To use politics as a positive force, you need governance body will start working for you.
to carefully select the stakeholders who can
inf luence others to favor your project. Financial
Strategic Project Management SPOMP describes
how to determine which stakeholders you need Market Your Change Initiative (M)
to select in order to use office politics to your Just as a manufacturer uses marketing to
advantage. seduce customers into purchasing a product,
you can use marketing to seduce stakeholders
into change. Therefore, you need to view your
change initiative as a product that you want to
Plan to Communicate (P) sell to stakeholders. Financial Strategic Project
In order to seduce stakeholders into change, you Management SPOMP describes how to sell
need to communicate on a frequent basis with your initiative by marketing your project, the
them. This is essential in order to create multiple capabilities of your project team, and yourself
opportunities for yourself to positively inf luence as the orchestrator of the change.
stakeholders in adopting and embracing your
change initiative. Frequent communication from
the start of the project ensures that stakeholders
are not confronted with a change, but that they Prove Potential Success (P)
are “taken along” in the change project. In The challenge of the fifth and last SPOMP
this way, stakeholders will get accustomed to strategy is to prove during the project that your
the idea of change, and this will significantly project will be successful in the end. The goal
reduce potential resistance. Financial Strategic is to create a positive attitude from stakeholders
Project Management SPOMP describes in two regarding the organizational change that you
clear steps how to efficiently plan frequent want to realize. If you can convince stakeholders
communication moments with stakeholders. of this potential success, then it becomes much
easier to seduce them into change. Financial
Strategic Project Management SPOMP describes
how to seduce stakeholders by proving the
Organize Inf luence (O) potential success of your project.
A steering committee, project board, or another
governance body can help you to create support
and buy-in for the change that you want to
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Financial Strategic Project Management SPOMP © 2012 Leon M. Hielkema
The Promise of SPOMP result of your successful image, you will be asked
The five SPOMP strategies are very powerful to manage ever more interesting and challenging
in seducing stakeholders into change because it projects. At a certain moment in your career, you
shows you who (S), when (P), and how (O, M, can even choose which projects you would like to
and P) to seduce. By SPOMPing your project, manage. The mere fact that you accept a project
you will make the stakeholder’s mind receptive assignment will be considered as a “quality mark”
to your ideas, even before implementing them in within your organization.
your organization. This greatly enhances your
chances of realizing a successful change. Your successful image ensures that colleagues
are keen to participate in the projects that you
In addition, SPOMPing a project has many are managing. It will also create trust amongst
other advantages. An advantage for the client is stakeholders which makes managing future
a shorter project duration because there is less projects increasingly easy. I know this from
resistance at the time the change is going to be my own experience and from the internal
implemented. Furthermore, internal users will professionals whom I have coached over the years.
benefit from SPOMP because they are able to It works in the same way as a football coach who
inf luence the change process. Moreover, project has a successful track record and thus a successful
team members will experience much more image. This football coach also has no need to
motivation to actively participate in the project explain why he or she opts for a certain line-up.
because SPOMP delegates responsibility to them.
Discover for yourself how you can SPOMP your
For you, the advantage is that SPOMPing a project project and successfully seduce stakeholders
will boost your career as an internal consultant. into the organizational change you want to
You will be perceived as a successful professional realize. Find out in everyday practice what
because you are realizing change faster and SPOMP can do for you and how it will boost
better than others in your organization. As a your career!
Leon M. Hielkema, MBA, has more than 15 years of
international experience in developing, executing, and
evaluating strategic change projects.
He has successfully coached many internal professionals
over the years and is a featured speaker and trainer.
With this book, he gives new, refreshing insights on how
to successfully effect change in complex organizations.
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Financial Strategic Project Management SPOMP © 2012 Leon M. Hielkema
Project Success Is Rare:
“This year’s results show a marked decrease in project success rates,
with 32% of all projects succeeding.”
(Standish Group, 2009)
“The technique is not enough.”
(Beaulieu, 2008)
“Nearly 60% of the companies we analyzed
lacked the right capabilities to deliver on their change plans.”
(Bain & Company, 2011)
“Things have gotten worse.”
(Swedish IDC, 2006)
“Project failures in companies accounted for $75 billion in losses,
attributing 60% of the failures to poor project management.”
(Gartner Group, 1999)
“61% of the analyzed projects were judged as failure.”
(KPMG Canada, 1997)
“A project is more likely to be unsuccessful than successful.”
(Idea Group, 2007)
“Today, companies spend more than $2 trillion on acquisitions every year
even though study after study puts the failure rate of mergers and acquisitions
somewhere between 70% and 90%.”
(Harvard Business Review, 2011)
“Organizations typically spend about 90% of their effort on activities to
‘push’ the change down the organization and invest very little effort in
creating ‘pull’ among people who are trying out new work behaviors.”
(Bain & Company, 2011)
“Project success rates are low, so we put in more controls.
This means less time managing projects and more red tape,
which in turn leads to even lower success rates.”
(Smith, 2009)
“The major cause of project failure during the lifecycle
of the project is bad communications between relevant parties.”
(Bull Survey, 1998)
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Financial Strategic Project Management SPOMP © 2012 Leon M. Hielkema
Praises for “Financial Strategic Project Management SPOMP”:
“The great thing about SPOMP is that it’s independent of the methodology that you use. It complements
PMBOK fully.” — V. Lloyd, Baltimore, MD
“SPOMP gave me the tools to inspire financial specialists to approach projects from a strategic business
perspective.” — N. Higginbotham, Philadelphia, PA
“I especially found the third SPOMP strategy very useful. Now I know how I can get the steering committee
out of my chair.” — M. Codinio, Seattle, WA
“Top-notch insights about collaboration, engagement, and how to bridge the implementation gap.”
— P. Vélez, New York, NY
“Proving the potential success of my project did it for me!” — C. Jackson, Fort Worth, TX
“An extremely agile approach to transformation, without losing control.” — A. Walker, Newcastle, Australia
“One of the most powerful books on Organizational Consulting that I’ve read in the past few years. Definitely
a keeper!” — W. Balog, Chicago, IL
“SPOMP increases your visibility in the organization enormously!” — M. Ravdin, Montreal, Canada
“Very readable, cohesive, clearly articulated, without the typical popular business management jargon.”
— A. Salinger, Camden, NJ
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Financial Strategic Project Management SPOMP © 2012 Leon M. Hielkema
“Strategic Project Management SPOMP”
is also Available for Internal Consultants from
Other Departments, Including:
HR Strategic Project Management SPOMP
(ISBN 978-0-9828779-0-6)
Marketing Strategic Project Management SPOMP
(ISBN 978-0-9828779-3-7)
IT Strategic Project Management SPOMP
(ISBN 978-0-9828779-4-4)
Legal Strategic Project Management SPOMP
(ISBN 978-0-9828779-5-1)
General Strategic Project Management SPOMP
(ISBN 978-0-9828779-6-8)
Please visit www.SeduceStakeholders.com/links for trusted links to Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Goodreads, iBooks, and
many more retailers. This page also contains updated links to my blog and social media venues like Facebook, Google+,
LinkedIn, and Twitter. I am looking forward to hear from you!
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