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Good cooperation between executives, between sponsors, and project managers is really the key to successful projects.
Learn how PMO leaders manage C-suite stakeholder perceptions to align project goals, improve communication, and ensure project success.
Key Takeaways
- PMO leaders must bridge the communication gap between project teams and C-suite executives.
- Aligning project goals with measurable outcomes is critical for executive buy-in.
- Regular engagement and workshops with executives improve understanding and support.
- Providing tailored, transparent information enables better decision-making at the executive level.
- Training and coaching for both project managers and executives strengthen project governance.
What the video covers
- Effective cooperation between executives, sponsors, and project managers is key to project success.
- PMO leaders act as facilitators and translators between project teams and C-suite executives.
- Executives prioritize project outcomes and strategic value, while project managers focus on budgets and timelines.
- Clear, measurable project goals must be defined early to align expectations and improve success rates.
- PMOs provide executives with the right information and metrics for informed decision-making.
- Engaging executives through workshops and regular communication fosters buy-in and alignment.
- PMOs help executives understand project management principles and the strategic need for projects.
- Transparency, open communication, and providing options rather than just problems are essential.
- Flexible reporting tailored to executive needs enhances stakeholder engagement.
- Training, coaching, and proper tools support both project managers and executives in their roles.
Chapters
- 00:00Introduction to Executive Cooperation in Projects
- 00:53Importance of Winning Executive Stakeholders
- 01:52Role of PMO in Supporting C-Level Decision-Making
- 02:52Bridging the Language Gap Between PMs and Executives
- 04:00Key Metrics for C-Level: Cost and Project Value
- 04:53Defining Clear and Measurable Project Goals
- 06:01Engaging Executives Through Education and Dialogue
- 07:04Workshops and Communication Strategies for Buy-In
- 09:08Transparency, Reporting Flexibility, and Visualization
- 10:59Skills and Tools for Effective PMO Leadership
Full Transcript — Download SRT & Markdown
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In project management offices, effective leadership requires guiding teams as well as managing up, ensuring that executives, sponsors, and other upstream stakeholders are aligned on why projects matter and what success looks like.
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Today, we discuss how to make that happen. In today's fast-paced and complex business landscape, project professionals lead the way, delivering value while tackling critical challenges and embracing innovative ways of working. On Projectified, we bring you insights from the project management
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community to help you thrive in this evolving world of work through real-world stories and strategies, inspiring you to advance your career and make a positive impact.
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This is Projectified. I'm Steve Hendershaw. There's more to a successful project than hitting your deadlines and budgets. You also need to win over the executive stakeholders whose perspectives play a crucial role in determining your project's fate.
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Accordingly, project management office or PMO leaders need to show executives why projects are worth the effort and expense, aligning everyone to the same expectations and definitions of success.
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Today, we'll get some insight on how to do that from two PMO leaders. Douglas Pini, head of the strategic management office at SPC Brazil in São Paulo, and Stefan Wolfhart, head of the project management office of Bosch Mobility in
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Stuttgart, Germany. [music] Let's kick this thing off talking about stakeholder perceptions, especially from the C-suite of projects, and how PMO leaders can affect those. Why do they matter? How can that even affect the project? Douglas, basically the PMO must be the
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facilitator to support the successful delivery of the project, and most part of this is providing information for the management level to understand the point of the implementation. Okay, the C-level, for example, the executives, the dynamic is a little bit different. Executives
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need to see the PMO as supporting decision-making. It's important the PMO leader and the PMO serve the C-level with the right information for decision-making, and of course, you have dashboard reports. This is really
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important, but the right information for decision-making is the best for the C-level. How do you think about what information to share? What are you thinking about in terms of this is what I'm trying to communicate or
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accomplish via these communications, and then, you know, how might that influence what you're communicating either via dashboard or via, you know, email conversation or other sorts of communications?
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I would say the most important thing is to understand and to know both perspectives. So sometimes executives and project managers speak kind of different languages, and perceptions are different. As a project manager, I'm tracking my budget, and as an executive, I
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have an eye on the outcome of the project. So that means I, as a PMO, have to serve as a kind of interpreter, like a translator or moderator between both sides. Yeah, to make both understand each other, and that's the most important
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thing when I work today here in PMO. Basically, the most important information that we have here is estimation to complete, right? Basically, all the cost I need to
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complete that project. When you talk with the C-level, they want to see how
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much I need to spend to deliver the project and compare this value to the value that comes through the output of the project. You know, in the second point for the C-level, they really want to know when this project is going to increase
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the revenue of the company. So as a PMO leader, you're taking on this translation role between your project managers and teams and executive stakeholders. Stefan, what does that look like in your context? How do you manage it?
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Normally, the projects are started by the executives, so either through strategy or through direct projects.
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That's exactly the point where we normally come into play. So are the project goals really measurable? Yeah, sometimes we start initiatives that sound good, but at the end, if you ask if the targets, if the goals are really
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clear and measurable, then they're maybe not in the first step. So we need to see what's really the target. If we talk about a typical project like efficiency increase, someone from the C-suite says we need to increase engineering efficiency or whatever, then of course
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you can start such a project, but how do you know when you reach the target? So what exactly is the goal? How much should we increase efficiency? And this is the point where we come in and say, okay, let's clearly define targets so
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that the project manager clearly knows which target to follow. We moderate these things and by that improve the understanding and also the
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probability to reach the goals in the right time. When you're managing this conversation and bringing the right
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information and, you know, you've got the right metrics in front of the C-suite, what can the PMO do in terms of engaging helpfully an executive in the project? What you can do as a PMO is to give them
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the opportunity to learn about project management. Many sponsors and many executives are, of course, initially from line management, so they've always worked with projects, but they see projects as something to fulfill targets, and of course, that's what it is. So sometimes
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we have different views on the things. So the project manager tracks budget. The executive wants to see the outcome, the benefit. Good engagement is really brought in by the executive him or herself because they should be the triggers for the project. They should, as
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a sponsor, initiate the project and explain the need for the project,
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explain the strategic need, and that's where we have to go into the dialogue.
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So if the need for the project is unclear, then we, of course, need to talk to the executive to come up with the reasons, to come up with more explanation, and triggering this engagement will also lead to a better project in a later
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phase. Yeah. Because if the sponsor, if the executive is regularly involved and in regular contact with the project manager, this will make everything easier to get this buy-in and align perception and align information of the project and the C-level. We have a
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alignment and perception management strategy and small meetings, you know, to ensure that the C-level knows about the project. Sometimes we make a workshop and put all team together to explain to the executives the real goal and benefit. Basically, it's the business plan
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for that project, for example. And the good part of this is we increase the voice of the management of the company, explain to the executives how important it is because sometimes the C-level don't understand the minor problems that we
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are going to solve, but it's very interesting because all team together and the C-level, you know, get real buy-in, really understood some problem in the field, some problem in the operations.
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We have something very similar here. We call it project initiation and acceleration workshops at the beginning.
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It's a kind of extended kickoff workshop where the project team gets together and prepares the project management plan. So they talk about the project, they get all the needs for the project, they understand what it is about, but
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they also work out the major risks. They work out the boundary conditions, etc. And at the end of the workshop, the management joins. The target is to get commitment and to understand the boundary conditions, to understand that there are major risks if there are, and
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to get the full backing from the management. And this works pretty good because they get a good feeling of the complexity. They get a good feeling of the mood of the team, the team spirit, and they can also impact it and
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influence it by just giving some motivational aspect. So what's the target? How does the project serve the strategy, etc.? So that's a good practice to get a good buy-in.
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What ca
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The key point is be transparent, be open, communicate and provide options. Yeah. If you only come up with issues with problems that will probably not help. So uh if we need a decision we should provide the right options and
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then uh of course enough facts so that the decision also can be taken. What do you find is the best way to present these updates to the seauite in Brazil is specifically we use WhatsApp for the communication the short
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communication. I think in other countries have SMS messengers and other things like that. All Fridays I send all information individually for the sea level of our company and I program another report on Sundays for my executives because on Sundays our
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executives most of them going to see some emails and believe it or not my executives say thank me to send this information in the Friday and the Sunday because they will prepare for the Monday discussion that we have in the board
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meeting. Stefan, you have anything to add there? Ask them what they need. So that means be flexible in terms of reporting. So if you have always predefined dashboards only that are not in line with what executives want to see, then of of
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course that's a problem. You should really ask at the beginning, especially in case of new projects or in case of new project types, what's the expectation? What do you need for steering? Yeah, we can make proposals here but at the end it's always a matter
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of discussion how they want to steer and then of course also check how much time the executive can invest wants to invest or should invest into the project and then follow these things and discuss them. So if as a PMO I have the
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impression that a closer tracking would be helpful then it's my task to discuss that and to find an agreement here uh how we can get the best reporting here so to allow also the best decisions.
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Stefan, is there an example you can point to when either you needed to manage perception that was drifting or just needed to sort of reach up and stir up some engagement?
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What happens quite often is underestimated complexity. Think about typical change project. Let's take a process development for example or new process that has to be introduced. That sounds very easy, but especially in large companies, you have a lot of boundary conditions. You need
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to figure out who are the stakeholders, who are the projects that are affected. How do you deal with projects that are already running? Do they have to adapt to the new process or not? How are these things going? This is often
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underestimated by executives who just need to fulfill something. But in this case, we have to manage complexity and also to talk about this complexity to make it clear why certain things take maybe longer than they were estimated at the beginning.
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And here often a good visualization helps. Yeah. So draw a map of complexity. I like these visualizations uh because they make things really clear. They make things really transparent and you have a good basis for discussion.
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What about managing the seauite's perceptions of the PMO long term? How do you communicate the value that the projects are delivering over an extended period of time? We have the BSC balance scorecard. This is basically our way to
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see all the strategy of the company. The outcome of this project, we put the KPIs in the BSC. However, here in NPMO, you have a huge dashboard of the last 100 project that we delivered and bring this informations and put in our reports
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because we need to uh show the company show to the C level. All project that we do in the last years, past five years and that value that we assume in the start of the project is really in the
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outcome. when we don't have this outcome the company know that you know and we have the planning actions in the BSC to you know revert this what do you think are the key skills or capabilities that PMO leaders listening should hone or
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develop to uh to get better at aligning stakeholder expectations and ultimately delivering more successfully stay close to your executives and stakeholder you need to be present supportative, you know, even at psychological and emotional level always act as the best interest for the
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organization as a whole in the balance between the individual needs, you know, and the collective values for the company. We need to communication clearly and effectly. Send emails, meetings, but it's important to understand how the communication is better understand for your stakeholders.
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Be empathetic. Yeah. So, understand your stakeholders, understand your needs, understand their roles. Yeah. What is their viewpoint and how does this fit to the project manager's point of view?
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Provide the right tools, provide the right cockpit charts, the right reportings so that both sides can really work with them. And of course, also provide training and coaching. That's an important thing. install trainings not only for product managers but also make
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some offerings for executives for sponsors. So how can they get better in their job? How can they improve their abilities in terms of project sponsorship in terms of being an executive and serving the project? If I can add, we have the sponsorship
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program. Basically is a training for the sea level. How to support a project. How to sponsor a project in the beginning to the end. The sponsorship is a main part of the project delivery. Sometimes the project is going wrong, it's going bad,
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something is not predicted, we going to face it. But the C level need to understand that. And here we have training a learning process for each C level that we have here because business sponsorship is different for the CEO,
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for the CEO, for the CTO. At the end, it's about manage and support and steer the project, but avoid micromanagement. We should never see the sponsor as the better project manager because they both have their roles. They both have their tasks and they should
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not overlap. They really fit together and they can produce the best outcome. Last thing for me, what's the top piece of advice for other PMO leaders?
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Most important thing is is networking. So know your stakeholders, talk to them, be empathetic, try to improve both sides. So both sponsors and executives and project managers understanding of of cooperation and by that improve the whole project portfolio.
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The PMO leader must be the link you know the facilitator to emphasize good communication. You know the technical skills is important but the soft skills how to communicate understand our stakeholders and most important than that is understand the value of each
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project that we deliver. That's great. Thanks very much to uh to both of you.
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Thank you so much for this invitation. Thanks a lot from my side and thank you for listening to Projectify. Like what you heard?
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Subscribe to the show on your favorite podcast platform [music] and leave us a rating review. Your feedback matters a lot. It helps us get the [music] support we need to continue making the show. And be sure to visit us online at
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pmi.org/mpodcast where you'll find the full transcripts for episodes as well as links to related content like useful tools and templates, the latest research reports, and more.
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Catch you next time.
Topics:PMOC-suitestakeholder managementproject managementexecutive engagementproject successcommunicationproject goalsdecision-makingproject leadership
