Research Proposal Presentation

Lynda Bourne
2034113
BUSM 1408

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 Supporting Project Managers in
building sustainable
relationships for project success.

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 In the current project environment...
•Many team members
–will only be part of the team as long as their specialist skills are required
–come from different organisational backgrounds and cultures
–may be geographically dispersed
•A small core team will be responsible for project delivery
•Organisations change constantly - a project’s stakeholder set will change:
–Senior Managers change roles or change companies
–The ability of stakeholders to influence the project may increase or decrease
•The Project Manager is still accountable for successful delivery of the project; there
are good reasons for project responsibilities to be shared:
–Sharing workload and coaching of less experienced members
–Knowledge Management
This project will investigate the effectiveness of a tool - the Stakeholder Circle -
to provide support for the PM and project team in managing the project’s
stakeholders.
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 Topic description
• Background
• Statement of problem
• Objectives
• Research question
• Research Method
– approach
– sampling strategy
– timeframe

• Scope and location of research

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 Background
• Managing relationships for project success is acknowledged as being as important
as the ‘hard’ skills of managing schedules and budgets
• The Project Manager’s accountabilities include relationship management
(Stakeholder Management)
• A project’s stakeholder set does not remain static throughout the project and needs
to be identified, tracked and managed appropriately throughout the project lifecycle
• In large organisations today, many projects have team members from many
different organisations. Teams consist of staff, contractors, and staff of other
organisations
• As specialists move in and out of projects, there is a small core team that manages
throughout the lifecycle.
• This core team should share responsibility for Stakeholder Management: workload
management, coaching, knowledge management, personality matching
• To facilitate this sharing it is essential to have a solid process and the support of a
tool.

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 The Problem
• How can a project manager ensure all
stakeholders are identified and assessed for
importance to the project
• How can the PM fulfil responsibilities in:
– inspired leadership
– relationship (stakeholder) management
– knowledge management
– HR management

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 Objectives
Main objective:
– To identify ways to improve the building and
maintaining of sustainable project relationships for
project success.

Sub-objectives:
– 1. To determine the effectiveness of a visualisation tool
for stakeholder management.

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 Research questions

1. How effective is the use of a visualisation

tool for project stakeholder management?

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 Research Methods - approach
• Deductive Approach
– testing theory through observation and data
• Exploratory Study
– Purposive, self-selection sampling
• Longitudinal
– projects must be around 6 months in length
• In-depth interviews at beginning and end with PM
• Group interviews with key team members
• Self-completion diaries
– to track issues and changes in stakeholder relationships with project

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Research Methods - sampling strategy
• Through Project Management professional bodies, personal
and business I will attempt to identify target companies and
project to participate in the research.These project must
have the following characteristics:
– A six-month lifecycle timeframe
– Specialisation – specialist are only part of the team for the input of their specialist advice
– Have a core team of 3 –5 members.

• Select five (5) projects representing a selection of industries

and project types from the following sectors:
– Service Organisations using complex infrastructure including IT solutions as the main
mechanism for delivery of that service (banks, telcos)
– Government (bureaucracy)
– Large traditional engineering (eg Ships, Bridges)

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 Research Methods - Timeframe
Day 1 Day 344

Research Project

Develop Research Proposal

and obtain approval
Develop and test questions
Develop and test tool
Obtain participants
Administer instrument(s)

Ongoing data collection and analysis

Final collection of data

Research Report

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 Issues
• Ethical issues
– Privacy
– Intellectual Property
– Confidentiality
• Other issues
– Continuous participation

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