Essential Elements of Managing Expectations

Let’s take a look at the essential tools and techniques that are available to the project manager to effectively manage stakeholder expectations.

Project Planning and Control Elements—A Quick Review

At many times during the on defining, planning, and controlling a project, we referenced managing expectations as a key reason or benefit of specific project management tools and techniques. Table 18.2 and Table 18.3 summarize the most important project management tools, techniques, and actions to manage stakeholder expectations.

TABLE 18.2 Summary of Essential Planning Elements to Manage Project Expectations

Element	Impact on Expectations
Project Definition Document	Defines why we are doing this.Defines what organizational-level goal(s) is supported.Defines how this project fits/aligns with the other projects.Defines expected benefits from this project.Defines what will be done.Defines who is impacted.Defines how success will be measured.
Scope Statement	Sets boundaries for what will be done and what will not be done.
WBS	Enables stakeholders to see the work that must be done.
Project Budget	Sets cost and ROI expectations.
Estimates	Foundation for budget and schedule.
Assumptions and Constraints	Key for better expectations around estimates, scope, budget, and schedule.
Project Schedule	Sets time expectations.
Project Plan	Sets expectations for how project will be managed.
Project Organization Chart	Identifies and communicates who is involved and how team is structured.
Stakeholder Analysis	Defines who is affected and what their needs are.
Communications Plan	Defines how the communications needs of project stakeholders will be addressed.
Responsibility Matrix	Sets expectations regarding role and work tasks.
Project Approach	Stakeholders need to know what is going to happen and why approach needs to be tailored to best manage stakeholder expectations.

TABLE 18.3 Summary of Essential Control and Execution Elements to Manage Project Expectations

Element	Impact on Expectations
Kickoff meetings	Notification project is underway; facilitates expectation setting for the group.
Project approach	Maximizes requirements definition and product/system development approaches that provide early and frequent feedback loops and that focus on demonstrating tangible aspects of the targeted solution.
Status reports	Regular, consistent performance monitoring and reporting keeps everyone informed.
Change control	Allows scope, time, and budget expectations to be reset and controlled along the way.
Quality management	Focused on satisfying real customer needs and ensuring the solution does the right thing.
Risk management	Anticipates, forecasts, and attempts to avoid impacts to the critical success factors.
Issue management	Communicates issues to the right people.
Requirements management	Drives expectations on the product of the project.
Completion criteria	Clarifies expectations for any work package.
Formal sign-offs	Documents acceptance of work products at points in time. Used with milestone and work product reviews.
Reviews	Validates expectations of work products along the way.
Milestones and checkpoints	Validates expectations of project performance along the way.
Requirements traceability matrix	Keeps visibility of targeted requirements throughout the project process.
Product backlog	For agile projects, keeps visibility on targeted requirements. Entries are prioritized and continuously refined during the project.
Team charter	Communicates team rules and procedures.

Leveraging Kickoff Meetings

Kickoff meetings are simple but powerful tools to help manage expectations. We could have discussed these in the on project communications as is typically done, but kickoff meetings are such an instrumental tool in managing expectations, I felt it was better to do it here.

In general, a kickoff meeting is simple. Get all the targeted stakeholders together to officially review the project and get it underway. So why focus on this technique? Kickoff meetings are invaluable for accomplishing certain things related to expectations management, and many people either do not do them properly or underutilize them.

Primary Goals

The three primary goals for any kickoff meeting should include the following:

• Give official notification that the project (or project phase) is underway.
• Achieve a common expectation baseline for all stakeholders.
• Start the relationship-building process between project team, customers, and other stakeholders.

Key Recommendations

With these goals in mind, here are some key recommendations for better kickoff meetings:

• The meeting size, length, and logistics will vary depending on organizational culture, project size, number of stakeholders, project methodology, and project importance. Plan your kickoff meetings accordingly.
• As a rule, don’t try to do too much or cover everything. Use follow-up, mini-kickoff meetings with focused groups or specific individuals to cover the details.
• For general kickoffs, get everyone there if possible, especially the executive sponsors.
• Set context for everyone. Focus on the “why.” Review project purpose, objectives, and value to the business.
• Clarify the priorities, target goals, and critical success factors.
• Paint the picture. Enable everyone to visualize how the final solution will look, how it will affect them, and how all the pieces fit together.
• Get to know each other. Start the relationship-building and teamwork processes. Introduce everyone.
• Review roles and responsibilities and project team organization. Emphasize each person’s role, expected time commitment, and value.
• Establish your leadership and the energy for the project. Set the tone; generate enthusiasm and motivation.
• Review important project plan items:
  • Scope and major deliverables
  • General approach (methodology)
  • Critical milestones
  • WBS
  • Schedule
  • Estimated effort and budget
  • Key assumptions, risks, and constraints
  • Key project communications processes
  • Process/procedures for monitoring project performance
• Whenever possible, hand out team keepsakes (or promotions) at the beginning of the project. It helps to build team unity and project awareness.
• Ask for feedback. Clarify any confusion now.
• Ensure people know what to do first/next (short-term). They should be clear on their next steps.

Requirements Management—The Difference Maker

A large percentage of expectation misunderstandings have their origins in the requirements gathering and requirements management processes. The frustrating thing about these situations is that most of them can or could be avoided. Although the subject of requirements definition is a field of study itself, we will leverage the Pareto principle here. We focus our attention on addressing the common requirements-related problems and the key principles and guidelines that make the most difference in your future requirements definition and management efforts.

Common Problems to Avoid

To better understand the value of the recommended principles and guidelines, let’s take a quick review of the common problems with gathering and defining requirements:

• Not well written—Requirements are ambiguous, inconsistent, too high-level, or not clear. CautionIf requirements are not detailed upfront, be prepared to spend more time in testing or more time in evolutionary cycles.
• Incomplete—The list of requirements is not complete to properly define the solution.
• Unstated expectations—The list of requirements does not accurately reflect all the expectations held by the stakeholders for the targeted solution.
• Inflexible process—Although specifications do need to be agreed on and finalized at certain points, defining requirements is an evolutionary process and things do change. The system for managing requirements must anticipate this reality. This is one of the strong aspects of using an agile approach.
• Inadequate definition process—Using statements to describe a targeted solution creates many opportunities for misunderstandings and misperceptions—the age-old problem with language. In most cases, you need to employ other techniques and methods to verify that you are defining the right solution. Techniques that help stakeholders visualize the final work product or solution are especially helpful. TipLeverage techniques and methods that help stakeholders visualize the targeted solution during the requirements gathering and definition process.
• Lack of education—Often, the stakeholders who are defining the solution requirements don’t fully understand the entire requirements process and the significance or impact of their decisions.
• Ineffective review process—Some examples include using a process that is not a good match for the reviewers’ natural working method or schedule; using a process that does not ensure reviewers are engaged; or using a process that does not make it easy to see what changed from the previous version.
• Using the wrong tool for the job—In addition to the challenges with leveraging the right techniques and methods to elicit requirements, the wrong tool is used to capture, store, and manage the documented requirements. In many situations, a requirements management tool that uses a centralized database foundation is needed to properly handle the needs of the project, solution, or organization versus the document-based approach. “The Fun Never Stops,” for more information on when a requirements management tool is needed.