Capstone: a stakeholder and communication strategy for a troubled project

This capstone brings the course together. You will take over an invented project in trouble, diagnose its stakeholder and communication problems, and build a recovery strategy covering stakeholder analysis, engagement planning, communication, conflict, negotiation and ethics. The second half of the lesson turns the same thinking into a strategy for People questions on the PMP exam. The organization, people and figures are invented for teaching, and any resemblance to a real project is coincidental.

The situation

Lakeshore Regional Transit is replacing its fare collection system with contactless payment on buses and trains. The project is in month 14 of a planned 24. You have just been appointed project manager after your predecessor left. In your first two weeks you learn the following.

• The vendor, FareTech, is six weeks late on the back-office software and says the delay is due to late changes requested by Lakeshore's finance department.
• The finance director says the changes were needed to meet audit requirements and that FareTech should have anticipated them.
• The operators' union has filed a complaint that drivers were not consulted about new procedures for handling payment problems, which they say will cause confrontations with passengers.
• The regional council, which funds the project, has not received a status report for three months. Two councillors have asked publicly why the launch date keeps moving.
• Accessibility advocates say the new card readers are mounted too high for some wheelchair users and that audio prompts are too quiet.
• The sponsor, the chief operating officer, wants you to tell council that the project is on track for launch in month 24, "because we will make it up".
• Your own analysis shows that, at current performance, launch will slip to month 27 and the budget of $38 million will be exceeded by about $2.5 million.

Step 1: Diagnose the stakeholders

Begin with analysis, not action. Update the stakeholder register, place stakeholders on a power/interest grid and use the salience model to see whose claims are most pressing.

Several stakeholders are definitive or close to it: the council controls funding and is now urgent, the union has a legitimate claim and the power to disrupt operations, and the accessibility advocates have a legitimate claim backed by law and could gain power through regulators or the media. The riders, currently unaware, will become important at launch.

Step 2: Address the ethical issue first

The sponsor's request to report the project as on track is the most urgent issue, because everything else depends on credibility with council. Reporting a month-24 launch when the evidence shows month 27 would breach the honesty standard of the PMI code, and the truth would emerge within months, destroying trust.

Step 3: Rebuild the communication plan

The absence of status reports for three months is a planning failure. The new communication plan should restore regular, decision-focused reporting to council and coordinate messages across all stakeholders.

Step 4: Resolve the vendor and finance conflict

FareTech and finance blame each other. Before negotiating with the vendor, the project manager needs the facts: what was in the contract, when the changes were requested, whether they went through change control and what the contract says about audit requirements.

Step 5: Engage the union and accessibility advocates

Both groups have legitimate claims that were ignored. They need genuine involvement, not more information. With the union, the labour relations lead sets up joint working sessions with drivers to design procedures for payment failures, such as letting passengers ride when a reader fails and reporting faults from the cab. Drivers test the procedures in a pilot. With the accessibility advocates, the project establishes an accessibility advisory group, tests reader heights and audio levels with riders who use wheelchairs and riders with low vision, and changes the mounting design on the remaining vehicles.

In Canada, transit accessibility is governed by provincial accessibility laws, human rights codes and, for federally regulated transportation, the Accessible Transportation for Persons with Disabilities Regulations. In Ontario, the AODA Integrated Accessibility Standards include transportation requirements. Labour consultation rights depend on the collective agreement and provincial labour law.

Step 6: Monitor and adjust

Recovery depends on monitoring. The project manager tracks the engagement assessment matrix monthly, records sentiment for each key stakeholder with the observations behind it, and reviews communication effectiveness: Is council asking fewer surprised questions? Are union concerns reducing? Are accessibility tests passing? The issue, decision and change logs are reviewed weekly. Six months later, the council is supportive, the union has withdrawn its complaint and the accessibility group is helping to promote launch.

Applying the course to PMP People questions

The exam rarely asks for definitions. It describes a situation and asks what the project manager should do, do first or do next. The same habits that rescued Lakeshore help with exam questions.

When two answers both look reasonable, ask which one a project manager should do first given the facts in the question. Look for clues such as "first", "next" and "best", and notice whether the question says a plan or process already exists, in which case using it is usually right. Remember that agile and hybrid scenarios use the same values: servant leadership, transparency, collaboration and engaging stakeholders through regular reviews.