Building and Managing Relationship with Stakeholders - Case Study Example

CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF PROJECT LEADERSHIP Student’s Name Course & Code Professor’s Name University City Date Executive summary Project management looks at how various aspects of project management can be harnessed to realise a successful project activity. This paper provides a reflection on the project management and leadership which was conducted at Deli Drinks company to establish the cause for the decline of production and customer loyalty to the company. This reflection focusses on establishing the background and the environment within which the project is conducted. Furthermore, the paper establishes the theoretical perspective in which the project was conducted. Through the theoretical study of the project, such approaches like systems approach were used in the project. These approaches led to demonstrating of the manner in which the relationship with internal stakeholders was built and managed. These means included motivating the members through such incentives as monetary value to enhance the morale of the members while conducting the project. The project further establishes the ways in which the relationship with the external stakeholders can be developed and maintained. These ways include incorporating diversity through cultural appreciation and inclusionwhich results in collaboration of the members and the environment in which the project was conducted in. Finally, the paper provides findings from the project and recommends on the possible solutions to the problem faced by Deli Drinks company. Contents 1.0 Introduction 4 2.0 Background and Environment of the Project 4 3.0 Project Leadership 5 4.0 Building and Managing Relationship with Internal Stakeholders 8 5.0 Building and Managing Relationships with External Stakeholders 10 6.0 Managing diversity in the Project 12 7.0 Findings and Recommendations 14 8.0 References 18 Project Leadership Critical Analysis 1.0 Introduction Project management through proper leadership dictates the success of any particular project for the team. This article outlines the analysis of how effective the bibliography on the project leadership was to the intended people. The outline analyses critically on the project leadership and how effective it was by looking at the relationship that existed between the project and stakeholders both inside and outside the project line. The article is effective and well-drawn to show the techniques used by the group to build a relationship between the external and internal stakeholders. It further looks at how diversity in the project was addressed and well taken care of for the benefits of the project in particular, the tools used to manage diversity for the project are explained and considered to check on whether they were used well to appreciate and value the existence of diversity in the team. In conclusion, this analysis looks at its findings and recommendations. That is through the analysis, the findings of the project are considered and recommendations are made for future related project. The analysis is important as it shows whether the project is relevant to the intended group and corrects where the project failed to address for the future benefits. 2.0 Background and Environment of the Project Through this section, there is an outline of the project documented to enable the reader understand the whole project at large. According to the project, the company Deli Drinks based in Australia had previously enjoyed the sale of its product to the people as being the best brand of natural fruits for a long period, later the company experienced some decline in the demand for its product in the market which then triggered the project management office to come with a team made of 12 members to investigate the problem and present the recommendations to the management. The project thus is presented in a way that it draws its reference from related articles, the structuring of the project draws its reference from the book by Burke and Barons which focuses on the project management leadership and how it can be used in project environment. The project further looks at how the project team is selected. It is a sensitive matter as the correct structuring and selection of the project team shows the competitiveness of the project in particular how it impacts the success of the project. There must be collaboration in the project team for there to be success of the project, thus the project outlines how collaboration can exist and how the team selection impacts a lot towards collaboration (Leach 2014). 3.0 Project Leadership The qualities defining an effective project leader is a concern that has affected many projects. The question that remains unanswered is what are the qualities of a good project leader? The success of project largely depends on the effectiveness of the leader, and effective project a leader is the one with the vision and goal of where to go and how to reach the vision destination without much inconvenience (Gido& Clements 2014). Good leaders in any settings are the ones who shows their people the reasons of being successful and why change is important for the team to succeed. Such leaders show the will to be visionary, and to see the end as the beginning of better times for the team, they look at every means to achieve what is intended for the team. These kinds of leaders make the members to feel like they own the project in particular by offering them opportunities to create their own visions about the project and where they would like to be at the end of the project (Kendrick 2015). Such leaders create total awareness of the project to the team members. From the project team there is a mention of collaboration between the project management and the team which is beneficial to the success of the project in question. For a team to change from people with different background to a common unit team, it is the work of the leader to have good transformative abilities. The dynamics that exists among the people may at times slow the actions of success for the project. The article thus focuses on selection of the team members as being the towards successful project executions, there is need to look at the larger picture of the project and select people who have similar characters that are almost in line with the objectives of the project (Schwalbe 2015). The article looks at collaboration of the project managers of different teams come up with proper selection of team members, though it is a good idea but it should be noted that every project has its main agenda which thus becomes a challenge when involving leaders of other teams which probably have different objectives. The project management looks at various practices that are used in proper project management such as motivation and work communication. Communication is one of the best skills by both the managers and the team members. It is one the best element that outlines the best leaders of the project, communication should be clear about the purpose of the project, its goals and objectives, and the expectations attached to the projects in the future. Transparency is also seen through effective communication among the leaders, there is a strong relationship between the leaders and the team members when communications is open and direct (Schwalbe 2015). The leadership of the project must have effective communication skills as they act as link between team members and the top leadership in this case the project management office of the company. The project leaders should be in a position to use persuasive language to negotiate with members when necessary to ensure the project is successful as intended. Environment of the project both internal and external is essential to the success of the project. The relationship between the project managers to the team members and other stakeholders should widely expounded on as the means to success. This project does not show the existence of strong relations between these two environmental concerns which are the backbone of the project’s success. Its analysis of collaboration through its analysis of the book b Lee 2013, the project seems to be a one-sided article as it only looks at the better side of the collaboration. The project does not look at the possible challenges that may face the collaboration process. Its leadership conclusions are also looked at from the team handling the project which may not well reflect the abilities of the leader for the project. In terms of communication, the project analyses the book of Lee and proposes an integration of both traditional and modern communication in project management. This is a good approach for the project as the integration of the two methods of communication gives the best alternative for the communication process (Kendrick 2015). Though this has been discussed, the project did not expound on some of the traditional and modern communication styles to be integrated such as face to face communication, telephone, and even print media, also the modern communication through online internet communication. This should have been explained and the best merge taken by the project management focussing specifically on the objectives of the project. The project consists of a team of 12 members, this shows the project is small depicting the number of team members. The leadership approach taken by the management, which is collaboration and communication merging the traditional and modern communication, was favourable for the project. The purpose of the project being to find out the reason for the decline in the product of Deli Drinks company, communication will involve asking customers of different backgrounds and literacy levels, thus the merge of both traditional and modern communication is itself relevant to the project. 4.0 Building and Managing Relationship with Internal Stakeholders The internal stakeholders of the project involve the management, the company employees, and the members of the project team. Managing relationship with internal stakeholders is key towards the success of the project in question, it ensures proper communication and delivery of adequate services needed for the success of the project (Turner 2016). For this project, proper relationship with stakeholders will lead to effective findings necessary to achieve the purpose of finding out the reason for the decline in demand of the juice product produced by the Deli Drinks Company. A good relationship should be communal rather than exchange relationship (Davis 2014). The internal stakeholders should be in a position to work towards the success of the project without expecting much of the personal material benefits. To maintain the relationship of the internal stakeholders simply involves communication as the most appropriate means. Communication involves guidance and direction on what is to be done, the purpose of the project, the objectives and goals of the project (Davis 2014). Inside communication should be open and without any hidden agenda. Communication should be clear about what is to be done by the management and the team members and more how the project will be beneficial to the entire company. For the project in question, communication should flow easily from the project management office to the project leaders and the team members and back to the PMO office of the company. Building the internal stakeholders trusts is another way of ensuring good relationship. The trust can be built through continuous consultations between the stakeholders and the entire organization; the PMO should respect the internal stakeholders and always pay attention to their opinion before making any decision which directly or indirectly affects them. Listening to the views by these stakeholders builds confidence and morale in them, this increases hard work and great relationship between this sections of stakeholders. Strong relationship among the internal stakeholders looks at commitment the members have. Stakeholders should be in a position to have strong commitment towards the project; this comes where the company shows commitment to ensuring the project succeeds to its completion by achieving its intended objective (Boulmetis&Dutwin 2014). The company through its PMO should show its commitment of attaining strong long term relationship with the internal stakeholders. This can be done through provision of the necessary facilities needed by the stakeholders to achieve their objectives. It is important to engage the internal stakeholders by looking at the positive sides of the project and by building loyalty of stakeholders to the project in question. The stakeholders need to understand the benefits of the project in the long term for them to commit to the project’s activities. The company through the PMO should make the stakeholders understand that they are important to the project for it to succeed, this makes the stakeholders to be motivated and keep on looking forward to the long term success of the project in question. From the project by the Deli Drinks Company, the focus is on management and leadership skills which define the success of the project. The project does not expound on consultation and communication can be used to build a strong relationship with the internal stakeholders. In fact the project does not identify who the internal stakeholders are and how the leadership style affects their commitment to the project. The project talks of communication and collaboration being the key aspects towards the success of the project but does not explain how the two can be used to strengthen the relationship with the internal stakeholders (Turner 2016). The project looks at team building techniques discussed in the book by Burke and Barron 2014 which are seen to be beneficial towards achieving the success of the project. What the project fails to explain are the various techniques of team building mentioned in the book such as strengths, teamwork, and also actions. 5.0 Building and Managing Relationships with External Stakeholders The project formulation and its execution depend on all people around it. As seen in the previous topic, there is need for a strong relationship to exist among the internal stakeholders. This phenomenon also applies to external stakeholders as they largely affect the success of the project at hand. The environment of the project from the project leadership work has been largely considered to be a strong determinant towards the success of the project (Binder 2016). The environment is considered to be favourable when it is collaborative in nature. Collaborative environment means the relationship existing among the people involved in the project is mutual and more beneficial to the success of the project. Collaboration should exist between the people of different skills and abilities, it consist those who are people who are not members of the project. External stakeholders are thus considered to those individuals who are not directly associated with the execution of the project but are indirectly affected by its success or failure. Strong relationship between stakeholders means success to any given project. In our project, external stakeholders include among others; the clients for the product by Deli Drinks Company, management of the entire company and other employees, and the general public who form the demographic environment where project is intended to take place. The project management faces a task of ensuring there is a strong relationship between the internal stakeholders and the external stakeholders. All these players have to understand their roles towards the project and be ready to work or give any information required by the project team when called upon. In identifying various internal stakeholders, it is important to draw up groups and identify the section that will be affected by the project; these are the intended audience to be referred to as external stakeholders. The collaboration between the project team and the stakeholders from outside has been talked about in the project leadership work showing how important the collaboration is to the stakeholders and it supports the successful implementation of the project. It is important to know that people whether in groups or as individuals behave differently depending on the situation at hand. This defines the need to assess the stakeholders and be in a position to know their commitment to the success of the project (Draft &Marcic 2016). Since the external stakeholders are not directly related to the project as internal, it is important to apply adequate considerate measures when dealing with this group of individuals. The impact that the stakeholders can cause to the strategies and policies of the organization largely depends on the influence of the stakeholders to the project. From the nature of the project in discussion, external stakeholders are much of influence and are very important to the project and thus must well be handled. The project above does not explain the use and importance of the external stakeholders. This opens up its weakness as these external stakeholders have been proved to be very important to the project. The articles outlined in the project dwells in collaboration and communication as the major boost to the successful relationship in the project. The project has positively managed to identify the commitment of some of its external stakeholders. Through its book by Turner, the project looks to strengthening relationship with funding agencies, and suppliers of both materials and human labour. This shows the strengths of the project towards identifying the key external stakeholders to steer the project towards its success (Burke & Barron 2014). The only shortcoming for the project is failure to recognize its customers which are one of the most important external stakeholders as they give the feedback needed to fulfil the object of the study of finding out the reasons for low demand of the drink by Deli Drinks Company. The project failed to identify the commitment of the external stakeholders to the success of the project, this one the key requirements to understand those stakeholders who are of benefit and who wants the project to succeed to its completion. 6.0 Managing diversity in the Project There are several complications that come into play when people of different cultures, characters, and beliefs come together to form a team. These complexities may affect the performance of the project either negatively or positively depending on the way it is handled by the management (Wrench 2016). It is important for the project leadership to always accept and be aware of the diversity that exists in the team; this gives it the upper hand of dealing with the diversity in favour of high performance for the group. Human behaviour is complex, this is seen in the way human beings react to their environment, predicting the reaction of these behaviours becomes part of the diversity in the group (Mathieu et al., 2014). As a leader of the team, it is difficult to predict the behaviour of the team members, how they will react to their colleagues, to the project expectations, and how they will react to the general requirements of the company. How the leader of the project manages these complexities is very critical to the performance of the project. Selection of the team members for the project is very important to managing the diversity. The leadership of the team should strive to understand the complexity existing among the members and be able to work out the possible way of making the complexities work for the project (Shemla et al., 2014). Selecting the right people for the team on the project is one of the most important aspects of achieving the objectives of the team. The selection should be based on member’s knowledge, skills, passion towards the project, and the ability for them to work well in a challenging and collaborative environment. The selection should be on merit in order to get the most passionate people who are willing to work well with one another with the main focus being to achieve the set objective of the group. Proper selection should start by involving the setting of objectives and goals of the project, finding out what is to be done, and then choosing the right people who are motivated and energized to do the work to attain the objective. To achieve common objective with the divers mind set, the project management needs to plan effectively. Planning should involve the members across the board, there should be consultations for the members to feel involved in the group, planning should involve also continuous getting of feedback to know how the team is working and how to improve the performance of the entire team (Mathieu et al., 2014). The project has worked with the diversity appropriately by proper selection by starting with the project management and then followed by the team members. From the project qualifications depends on the nature of the project though there are other basic requirements which are put in place. The project looks largely on the selection as the key towards the better performance of the team. There are two types of collaborative tools used in project formulation; that is the profession service automation and the enterprise project management. To ensure collaboration and strong relationship, it is important to provide the team with communication tools which makes the members to feel useful and tied to one another for the success of the project (Moran, Abramson & Moran 2014). Creation of awareness among the members is one of the key tools to ensure the members understand the need to improve performance for the success of the project. The project in question focuses on the selection through reviewing the previous performances and the assigned work before and how they did it, this ensures the team selection consist of members with history of hard work and persistence who are ready to work hard for the success of the project. The project leadership should continuously asses the performance of the members by arranging meetings with them to understand their feeling and perception about the project. Diversity in this project is not fully taken care of in terms of tools that improve collaboration among the team members. 7.0 Findings and Recommendations From the analysis several findings can be drawn that outlines how the project can formulate and implemented and recommendation to be considered in future projects. Such findings are listed below; It is evident that for a project to be successful the team leader must be visionary and a goal oriented person. A good project leader should be the one with the vision of where to go and how to achieve the set objectives of the project, the leader is the driver of the team and thus if the leader fails, then the project as well as dead (Kirton& Greene 2015). It is therefore recommended that any organization intending to formulate a project must be keen on choosing the kind of leader who can drive the project to its success. The analysis also shows that for a project to be successful, there must collaboration and effective communication among the stakeholders. A good relationship means there is adequate communication among members, and that the objectives of the project are well understood by all the parties involved. Thus it is recommended that the project leadership should be in a position to come up with techniques of improving communication and strong relationship among the team members and other stakeholders. From the study, selection of members is an important aspect to the success of the project. Project leaders have to select members carefully; they should do this by tracing the records of the members for the previously assigned duties and how they did, and also looking at the knowledge and skills of the possible candidates ((Shemla et al., 2014). For future projects, it is recommended that the management should not base much on the previous duties but most on the ability and the motivation that the potential team members have to the project. The possible impacts that the team members can bring to the project should be taken into account. The study shows diversity existing among members of the project to be one of the key tests that leaders have to careful deal with. The difference in culture and the way doing things among the team members is seen to be a challenge and collaboration, motivation, and consultations are seen to be the tools to manage diversity in the project. Future project managers should look at diversity as an advantage to achieving their goals. 8.0 References Binder, J 2016, ‘Global project management: communication, collaboration and management across borders’, CRC Press. Boulmetis, J &Dutwin, P 2014, ‘The ABCs of evaluation: Timeless techniques for program and project managers’, John Wiley & Sons,Vol. 56. Burke, R & Barron, S 2014, ‘Project management leadership: building creative teams’, John Wiley & Sons. Daft, R &Marcic, D 2016, ‘Understanding management’, Nelson Education. Davis, K 2014, ‘Different stakeholder groups and their perceptions of project success’, International Journal of Project Management, vol. 32 no. 2, pp.189-201. Gido, J & Clements, JP 2014, ‘Successful project management’, Nelson Education. Kendrick, T 2015, ‘Identifying and managing project risk: essential tools for failure-proofing your project’, AMACOM Div American Mgmt Assn. Kirton, G & Greene, AM 2015, ‘The dynamics of managing diversity: A critical approach. Routledge’. Leach, LP 2014, ‘Critical chain project management’,Artech House. Mathieu, JE, Tannenbaum, SI, Donsbach, JS &Alliger, GM 2014, ‘A review and integration of team composition models moving toward a dynamic and temporal framework’, Journal of Management, vol. 40 no. 1, pp.130-160. Moran, RT, Abramson, NR & Moran, SV 2014, ‘Managing cultural differences’, Routledge. Schwalbe, K 2015, ‘Information technology project management’, Cengage Learning. Shemla, M, Meyer, B, Greer, L &Jehn, KA 2014, ‘A review of perceived diversity in teams: Does how members perceive their team's composition affect team processes and outcomes?’ Journal of Organizational Behavior. Turner, JR 2014, ‘Handbook of project-based management: leading strategic change in organizations’, 4th edn, McGraw-Hill, USA. Turner, R 2016, ‘Gower handbook of project management’, Routledge. Wrench, J 2016, ‘Diversity management and discrimination: Immigrants and ethnic minorities in the EU’, Routledge. Read More