Painful Lightning Bolts

Powerful stakeholders often throw painful lightning bolts at projects, seemingly out of the blue. However, these lightning bolts are rarely as unexpected as they seem. More often they are the culmination of a series of mistakes, especially when it comes to managing the expectations of these crucial stakeholders.

Experienced project leaders deliberately manage expectations. First, they use their emotional intelligence skills to forge key relationships, establish trustworthiness, and build reputations as truth tellers. Second, they establish formal project communication systems that keep the right people informed about important project information.

Informal Time

Build informal relationships before you need them. A colleague of mine speaks dismissively of  "the old boys' club"--that insular, exclusive group who controls access to information. The "old boys" informally steer power and perks to each other, regardless of damage to the organization and other employees.

Although old boys' clubs are harmful, they demonstrate the importance of the power of informal relationships to projects. Formal communication channels, such as scheduled status reports and project reviews, are not sufficient. People who lead projects must have a strong network of informal relationships with key stakeholders, allowing them to have difficult but crucial conversations at key times during a project.

Informal relationships with stakeholders are built primarily when people talk to each other. But many project leaders rely heavily on   Read more.

Well into his decades-long career as a civil engineering manager working in transportation, Carl Selinger harbored a secret: he was scared of negotiating contracts with vendors. In fact, he was scared of negotiating, period. Yet he found himself once again, on a major airport access project, facing the grim prospect of having to sit down at a table with a potential vendor.

He realized he needed to do something about this problem. He needed to learn some negotiating skills--fast. So he forced himself to attend a training session about negotiating. What he learned there was helpful, and he was happily surprised to realize this problem hadn't been that hard to fix!

The experience prompted him to take a closer look at himself. "What else don't I know how to do?" As the list developed, he realized these were essential abilities engineers need in everyday professional life--none of which are taught in engineering school!

And that became the genesis of his book, Stuff You Don't Learn in Engineering School.

His message to practicing engineers, as well as students, is this:  Read more