192 Project Management
your project. This can lead to a difficult decision: should you
make supporting groups part of the regular core team or not?
This is a tough call. Having a group representative on the core
team and attending regular team meetings will promote team
cohesion and enhance the “collective intelligence” we discussed
in Chapter 5. However, if their role does not call for ongoing,
regular involvement, representatives may feel as if you’re wast-
ing their time. This is an issue you should discuss with each
individual at the outset of the project. Their contribution—what-
ever its magnitude—is likely to be richer if they participate at a
level that you’re both comfortable with.
External Stakeholders and Their Roles
By definition, external stakeholders are not part of your organi-
zation. Although they normally want your project to succeed,
their stake is often focused more inwardly. This is true of most
external stakeholders, except those for whom you’re doing the
project (external customers). Most external groups—particularly
those supplying goods and services—are inclined to take a
parochial view of your project. This means that you cannot
always count on them to put what’s best for the project ahead
of what’s best for them. This may sound cynical, but it’s reality.
The External Customer
Projects that address the needs of external customers are typi-
cally characterized by contracts, so project managers normally
Some Team Members May Not Be
“Good Stakeholders”
One word of caution is worth mentioning about team
members behaving as stakeholders.As discussed in Chapter 2, some
organizational cultures don’t create a strong sense that project excel-
lenceis important; they recognize and reward functionalexcellence, not
projectexcellence. If this sounds like your organization, it’s possible that
your core team members may not feel that they have much of a stake
in the outcome of the overall project.They know that as long as they
do what’s expected, they’ll be OK. Be attentive to this phenomenon on
your team and manage these situations as we discussed in Chapter 2.