How Visible Is Your Project?

I believe that the vast majority of projects are not nearly visible enough, particularly among the extended stakeholder and customer groups, though I’m constantly under fire for holding this opinion.

The reason teams don’t like visibility, as far as I can tell, is that we humans – in general – like to hide what we perceive as risky behaviour.  We do it as children, and the instinct doesn’t disappear.  (Though once we’ve got the trick mastered,  we’re quite happy to show it to the world to impress them with our daring – just watch the skaters on the South Bank in London).

I was discussing this topic with a project team last year, at the beginning of a project, and we noticed something interesting:  The client team members were negative about the chances of success, while the consultants were confident.  “We don’t know how we’re going to do it, but we do know we are going to get there”, said the consultants.  I suppose they felt they’d “mastered the trick”, or possibly their consequences of failure were lower.  Naturally, the team members with the high expectations of success wanted to communicate broadly and more frequently.

So what is the right level of visibility for your project?  There’s no right answer.  I’ve worked on a project where I might have got shot-at, if it had become public knoweldge at the wrong moment (strikes in Nigeria can be rowdy affairs).  But in general the fears are much worse than the reality.  In all but the most extreme cases, it’s a good idea to bring some facts to the table to answer this question – but ask the stakeholders, not the team!

One convenient way to get input from the stakeholders is to use an online survey tool.  There are several around; here are a few suggestions:

1. Prezza Technologies supplies a tool called Checkbox Online
2. QuestionPro Survey Software supplies a tool called…QuestionPro
3. KeySurvey Software provides a service called Key Survey

There are plenty more out there too.  Here are a few things to remember when you do this:

• Make sure your survey looks professional – it will influence the quality of response, and the perception of your project.
• The responses you get are opinions, not facts.  What people say they want is different from what they actually want, deep down underneath.
• The way you ask the questions in the survey will influence the responses.
• The most important point: The act of asking your stakeholders how to communicate with them will make them more amenable to your communications. It will also make them more susceptible to your change management efforts.  The confidence you are showing by doing the survey will stand you in good stead to get other inputs you never expected.

Philip Greenwood

Tags: Survey, Visibility, Communication, Project, Team, Behaviour