PM Network - October 2016

involved,” Mr. Jenkins says. ;e best way to keep
everyone up to date is to treat all stakeholders as
business partners and to communicate updates that
ensure every business initiative is shared across the
enterprise, he says. “Otherwise a simple misunder-
standing can turn a $1 million project into a $5 mil-
lion project very quickly.”
Mr. Jenkins learned that lesson the hard way.
A few years ago, his team deployed a network of
battery-operated beacons across Miami Inter-
national Airport to monitor temperature, traf-
fic flow and other environmental data. It was a
low-cost pilot project (a US$35,000 budget and
one-month timeline) that Mr. Jenkins’ team felt
didn’t require a lot of stakeholder involvement.
But after they mounted 400 of the devices—each
the size of a stack of coins—on surfaces all over
the building, 100 of them were missing by the
next day.

“We didn’t take into consideration that the
cleaning crew didn’t know what they were, so
they took them down,” Mr. Jenkins says. A lot of
them got thrown away, and others were turned
in to the IT department. Retailers complained
that the remaining beacons obstructed their sig-
nage. “It was a valuable lesson in the importance
of stakeholder involvement,” he says. “But this
helped ensure the project’s long-term success by
revealing that we needed to create an awareness
both internally and externally.”
When Mr. Jenkins relaunched the project in
2015, his team let everyone at the airport know
what they were doing and requested feedback from
retailers on where to locate the devices. Taking the
time to engage with every stakeholder and to bal-
ance improvements to the passenger experience
with the highest levels of security is the only way
to deliver a tech project successfully in an airport
environment, Mr. Jenkins says.

“An e;ective business plan, good communication and a clear understanding of what you are trying to accomplish can help you avoid pitfalls and scope creep and ensure the project you deliver adds value.”