Suresh Gopalakrishnan, PMP, is a program
manager at Fujitsu America Inc., San Diego,
California, USA.
3. Influence Without Authority
In consulting, one of the biggest challenges is getting clients’ acceptance and willingness to share
their business processes. Often we encounter
people who believe their business is so complex
that no one else can understand it. This can lead
to many difficulties during the initial stages of a
project, such as getting entrance and exit criteria,
a complete business scenario listing and
detailed requirements.
I once faced a similar challenge on a project:
Despite our best efforts, we were not able to get a
complete list of business scenarios against which
we could test the system we were building. Every
time my team requested the listing, we were told,
“Our business is so complex that we could only
write 15 scenarios. Please keep in mind that there
are a million other combinations that we cannot
define.” Basically we were asked to read the client’s
mind and build a system that would meet all the
requirements. Despite multiple escalations to client
leadership, the situation did not improve.
My “Science of Persuasion” course had an inter-
esting equation:
Knowledge + Trust = Authority. Analyzing my
challenge in retrospect, it’s clear that the project
team lacked authority and assumed that escala-
tion would force the client to comply with project
needs. Our business analysts did not have a thor-
ough knowledge of the organization’s processes,
which put us in a very weak position to influence
the business. To prevent this situation, project
practitioners should spend some serious time
understanding business processes so they have
an authoritative position from which to navigate
a project. PM
When dealing
with conflicting
priorities,
project
practitioners
should explore
the interests
behind
stakeholders’
positions.
