How to Quantify Project Stakeholder Satisfaction?

Use Surveys to Quantify Project Stakeholder Satisfaction

At the end of a project, many project managers want to collect data that points out how successful the project was. Some of this information, like schedule and budget information, should not be so hard to gather. Many project teams also want to gather stakeholder feedback on how the project team performed. You could ask questions regarding how professional the team was, how responsive, how the team communicated, and much more.

You could go around and ask everyone verbally. However, this approach cannot be measured. The best you can end up with is a collection of quotes.

A better way to collect customer satisfaction information is through a simple survey. Surveys are by their nature qualitative; that is, they reflect the opinion of the person being surveyed. Many surveys ask for a combination of ratings feedback and written feedback. The numerical answers are used to drive the metrics, while the written feedback provides additional perspective that can be used in the overall analysis. There are a number of advantages to a well-worded survey.

• When you are trying to determine how people interact with each other, perhaps the best way to gather feedback is to ask the affected people themselves. Surveys allow you to gather people from any and all stakeholders that were impacted by the project.
• Surveys are a relatively inexpensive way to gain feedback from many stakeholders. The more stakeholders you want to query, the more it makes sense to use a simple survey.
• The ratings feedback can be interpreted mathematically for precision and ease-of-use. One great advantage of surveys is that you can gather feedback from a tremendous number of people, and yet synthesize the results using simple math.
• You can get "shades of gray" from the rating feedback. A survey allows you to receive answers based on a continuum or a range of possible results. In other words, the answers are not "yes" or "no" but allow feedback on a continuum such as a 1 - 5 scale. 

Of course, there are also a number of weaknesses with a survey approach. These include generally not receiving feedback from a high percentage of people. It is also my perception that many (most?) surveys are not well written. For example, surveys may ask how satisfied a stakeholder was with the quality and frequency of communication. The stakeholder may have different opinions as to the "quality" and the "frequency" which makes this difficult to answer with one response.

When you are determining the success of a project you want to use data to compare actual values with targets. This is not hard with schedule and budget. Surveys help you convert opinions and perceptions to data values as well.

How to Assess Projects to Validate Use of Common Processes?

Many Project Management Offices (PMOs) spend quite a bit of time deploying common project management practices in their organization and building project management skills in their staff. But is it working? The PMO can validate whether their work is sticking through project assessments.

Project assessments serve two functions.

• Checking compliance. They help ensure that project managers are using the new project management processes.
• Coaching. Assessments can also be an opportunity for coaching. During the audit, you can help the project manager understand how the processes are applicable to their project.

It is one thing for the PMO to provide training and have all the appropriate processes and templates defined. It is another thing for the new processes to actually be adopted and utilized by the project teams. If you want to change the culture and make sure that the new processes are sticking, you must make sure that the project teams are utilizing them correctly. The purpose of the assessment is to determine how well the project manager and project team are utilizing the project management processes. During the assessment, a member of the PMO asks a series of questions to ensure compliance with the required processes and procedures.

To help reinforce the responsibilities of the managers, the results of the project audit should be documented and sent back to the project manager, as well as the manager of the project manager. In addition, the results are summarized and sent to the PMO sponsor, Steering Committee and other management stakeholders. If a project team is not using the standard processes, the senior managers and the PMO sponsor ultimately need to ask why. This is part of a governance process.  

The auditing process can be time-consuming. Just as it is not possible to provide coaching for all projects, it is also not practical to audit all projects. Actually, you don't need to. If you audit a project in a certain department and it comes out pretty well, it is likely that the other projects in that same area will also come out well, since the functional manager is probably helping with the push. On the other hand, if you audit a project and find the standard procedures are not being followed, it is likely a sign that the manager from that area is not being supportive of the methodology, and other projects in that area will probably have problems as well. Raising visibility of the problem projects should bring organizational pressure to make the proper changes. 

Summary

It would be nice if you could develop a common project management processes, train everyone, and then sit back and let the magic happen. Unfortunately, this rarely happens in a culture change initiative. The PMO must look at this project management implementation in a holistic manner; including validating that things are progressing according to plan. On a project level, this verification includes ongoing project assessments to validate that project teams are utilizing the new methodology as expected. These assessments will point out the overall progress (or lack of progress) that has been made up to that time.