Do you really know who your client is?
Do you know their management and reporting structure?
Have you analysed the key stakeholders in the project?

If you have answered yes to all of these then well done, if not you could be in for a big surprise when you come to sign off the project. Many a project has failed due to key stakeholders wading in at the end of a project, if you have not engaged with them at all key decision gates.

Who is your client?

We define the client as the main point of contact within the company you are working with. Your client is not always a senior stakeholder or project sponsor. You need to identify who has the authority to sign the project off in your client’s organisation.

Project sponsor

The project sponsor is the person who owns the business case for the project, and is responsible for delivering the project benefits to the organisation. The project sponsor is the most important person on the project, so you must identify and engage with them at all times.

Analyse project stakeholders

Stakeholders are people with a vested interest in the project, and a cross section of stakeholders usually sit on the project steering committee with the project sponsor.

Not all stakeholders are made equal, so you need to rank the stakeholders with the following criteria:

• How much influence they have in the organisation
• How much interest they have in the project

The most important stakeholders are those with a lot of influence and a lot of interest in the project.

Stakeholders have a huge impact on a project, so you need to know who the key influencers are and who calls the shots.

Conclusion

Knowing your client affects the way you communicate and how the project is run, and ultimately affects the success or failure of the project.

We make sure that at the start of every project we have only one main point of contact (client), who calls the shots, and we make sure that we communicate and collaborate with the key statkeholders. Otherwise your project is doomed to fail.