September Dinner Meeting: "Stakeholder Relations in Project Management—Perspective from a Start-Up City"

Presented By: J.D. Clockdale, Co-founder, City of Brookhaven
Written By: Ronke Oyemade, PMP MBA CISA CRISC

J.D. Clockdale was the speaker at the PMI Dunwoody Dinner Meeting held at Crowne Plaza Hotel in Atlanta on September 9th, 2013.  He spoke about how the city of Brookhaven was created in a month after voters successfully voted during the elections held in November 2010, that the city of Brookhaven should be created. He explained the challenges faced by his team when creating the Brookhaven City. These challenges included the following – Different sets of expectations held by the Brookhaven City’s 50000 new stakeholders had to be met, the city hall had to be set up, roads had to be maintained, the municipal court had to be created, and business and other licenses had to be issued. He said the successful creation of Brookhaven city was due to the Threshold Rule which he implemented. According to Mr. Clockdale, the implemented Threshold Rule comprises of 3 concepts which are:

Concept 1 – Perspective
Concept 2 – Communications
Concept 3 – Collaboration

Concept 1: Perspective
Mr. Clockdale stated that a project manager has to understand the project’s stakeholders’ mindset and perspectives. He said that, as the number of stakeholders increases, it becomes increasingly difficult for all stakeholders to have just one or few perspective(s) with regards to the project being implemented. Therefore, instead of the project manager feeling frustrated and wanting to quit because it seems impossible to meet the stakeholders’ expectations with regards to the project deliverables , a project manager should view the project’s expectations and deliverables from the stakeholders’ point of view and understand the stakeholders’ mindsets. According to him, stakeholders’ main expectation is the need to know what is in it for them.

Concept 2: Communications
According to Mr. Clockdale, stakeholders have the tendency to resist when they do not have enough information about the project being implemented. He said that by understanding the stakeholders’ perspective, the project manager can then tailor communication with the stakeholders in such a way that the tension between the project management and stakeholders with regards to the project’s deliverables will be greatly reduced. He further said that communication should be started early within the project’s lifecycle and should be frequent, transparent and truthful. He elaborated that communication between the project management team and stakeholders should comprise of project requirements, feedbacks, performance expectations, financial budgets, project objectives and partnership. He also emphasized that communication should be based on trust and honesty because this will result in the project manager (and project management team) building credibility with the stakeholders.

Concept 3: Collaboration
Mr. Clockdale stated that there is a natural tension between the project management team and the stakeholders during the project lifecycle and this tension can be minimized through collaboration between the project management team, the team members implementing the project and also the stakeholders. Such collaboration also increases trust and credibility of the project manager and his team. He also emphasized that collaboration leads to others on the project management team besides the subject matter experts, having the opportunity to contribute ideas which will lead to increased success of the project.