The Project Management Circus: Act 2 - The Lion Tamer (Project Sponsor Management)

The lights go out for a few second and there is a booming voice that announces Act 2.

A spotlight shines on the person coming into the cage and inside the cage were several lions.

The person has a whip on one hand a chair on the other and he has treats in his pocket. He has been here before and he knows the lions well - each one of them. He knows not only their names but their personalities as well. He knows what makes them tick. He knows he needs them to succeed. He knows they need him to control the chaos that can happen without him. He waves his hands to his spectators as if in victory even before the show begins.

The booming voice announces him as....The Project Manager.

Each project manager deals with this situation for every new project - facing the project sponsors and working with or through them to ensure project success. What does he need to succeed in this initiative?

1. Sufficient knowledge of who the sponsors are and where they belong in the hierarchy of the organization - the pack order.

2. True knowledge of what is their stake in the project - not just what they publicly say - but what their internal agenda is.

3. Knowledge of their comfort levels, risk tolerances and when thrown into a corner - which would they primarily protect if they can only choose one - scope, cost, schedule or quality?

4. Knowledge of their pain and pleasure points which may include what information does each one want to hear, when and how and what motivational triggers can be pulled if the project manager wants the sponsors to "jump through hoops'.

5. Understanding the defense mechanism of each one. When provoked - will Lion A run away and will Lion B attack? If the project manager knows who will go into the offensive as a defensive - he needs to make sure he knows how best to defend himself.

Balancing between sponsor motivation (the treats), punishment(the whip) and defense(the chair) is a key skill that each project manager should develop. It is so much better to know how to manage them that to find your head trapped between their jaws.

Red Pill or Blue Pill? (Living in the Matrix)

Most of us, unfortunately, were not given the choice that Neo was given in the movie The Matrix and we typically either land in a matrix environment or not.

I lived in both worlds and I can attest to the fact that whichever organization structure you are in - they all have their pros and cons. I can say, though, that it is the matrix environment that required me, as a project manager, to develop some specific skills that allowed me to navigate it.

Why is it tricky to navigate? For one, aside from your immediate project team, most of the people you need to be successful do not directly report to you. That means that, chances are, their priorities are different from yours and they can derail your project with less of a concern in terms of performance reviews - as long as their real boss agrees with them. There is also this need to have more communication channels which open your team up to a lot of possible miscommunications.

So what skills did I need to succeed in this environment?

1. Influence - John Maxwell, in his book, Developing The Leader Within You actually said that "Leadership is Influence" and never is it more apparent than in a matrix environment. Unlike a direct report, you need to influence more a person or team that does not report to you to buy into your plan and work with you to succeed

2. Communication - Communication takes on a deeper meaning in a matrix environment since it is the glue that keeps everyone pasted onto your objective as you try to move everyone to the goal and as I mentioned, I realized that in a matrix environment,  there is a need to have more communication channels laterally since one characteristic of a matrix environment is that the org chart is a lot flatter but broader.

3. "Ball Handling" - The matrix was created for several good reasons and one of them is to allow expertise to develop in a group while allowing these experts to work in your projects - sounds good but this requires that, as a project manager, you should know when to pass the ball and to whom. This message got imprinted on me in a workshop when excepts of the movie Goal! - The Dream Begins was shown to us.

4. The ability to see the bigger picture - There were times that I needed to admit that truly my project was less of a priority than a project my matrix team was working on and I had to give way and replan my project because at the end of the day - the question is "which project stands to give the company the best possible benefit vs cost". Some days - that project is not yours.

So why does the matrix still exist amidst the complexities it has? It is only the matrix environment that allows a company to have the expertise and flexibility to execute projects through different resources. For it to be as productive as possible though - the matrix must move as one as a project manager - you are one of those people that steer it.