In my last post we began an exploration into the seemingly benign question "Why do we need Project Management anyway?".

Side stepping one of the more obvious reasons such as without formal active project management, a project is less likely to stay the course in schedule, cost and quality, we can however say that one very good reason we need project management is to 'set expectations'.

So what does 'setting expectations' exactly mean?

Well, first and foremost, the content is different based on the particular speaker and the audience. For example the content that one might cover if you are talking to your direct reports may be 'tell them what their job stresses are, how you will listen to them and action accordingly etc..'. If however, as the PM, and you are talking to stakeholders, then the message content will be markedly different.

Having said that, the commonality to both of the mentioned scenarios above, is that, what is in MY brain needs to match what is in YOUR brain.

We likely all have experienced this in our own daily lives where we thought one thing, mean while the other party thought something completely different. And after the dust settles we are left dumb founded to learn that such a chasm could possibly exist between what seemed to be so obvious.

So before we can even set an expectation, how can we first best prepare ourselves? Here are some suggestions that I have found useful:

1. Listen first then speak
2. Restate what you thought you heard in your own words
3. Ask your audience if what you said is correct
4. If you are still not sure or if your audience does not agree, it is important to probe and ask more questions (this is the point where most of us feel dumb and are afraid to ask for fear of looking stupid). Don't feel stupid. Instead press on with your questions.
5. Both parties should agree to agree that each of you are on the same page

Once you've set the tone for setting expectations there are several common methods/trouble areas. Four in particular that I'll mention here, but will not go into detail due to time and space constraints. They are:

1. the communications vehicle
2. risk evaluation
3. metrics
4. value realization

If you would like to further explore the above common trouble areas, find out more about one of our upcoming in class courses. Find out more.

My next plog post will be on documentation, what to document, how to document and why it is important ito do so. It ties into setting expectations directly because if at the end of the day we have no documentation, we're just setting up ourselves for failure down the road.

Until next time.

W.Beacon, PMP