Potential Political Barriers For Project Execution
During the execution and controlling processes of a project, political barriers may surface and negatively affects the working relationship between the organization performing the work and client or business organization. Some of these conflicts might include:
#1 Goal differences
It might be possible that the two of them have goal differences. There are instances that the requirements that the project manager and the business community are looking at are different. If at any time, the two groups failed to come to the round table and agree on what project requirements should be, they will always be working in different directions.
#2 No Alignment
Another potential barrier to project success happens when there is no alignment among the different departments in the organization. In this case, the project fails because the whole organization was not arranged in such a way that they will be able to work independently and interdependently. This also happens when they see them as competitors rather than partners.
#3 Scheduling issues
At times, scheduling issues can be a form of hindrance to projects. This happens when the project manager as a person does not have the power to enforce some of his wills. Take, for instance, a Project Manager needs a particular resource that is very critical to his project but the departmental manager did not want to release him for the project. This can be a form of hindrance to project success.
#4 Users issues
At times, there might be problems among project stakeholders as to the total number of users needed in order to achieve project objectives. Some of them might fail to yield to the advice of the Project Manager or Subject Matter Experts as to the total number of resources needed. This can happen where there are two many bosses on the project, the project manager is new or stakeholders do not trust the judgement of the Project Manager.
#5 User Management participation
There may also be a problem when the project manager failed to carry the user population along. As long as the stakeholders feel that they are not updated enough about the progress of the project, they might decide to boycott the project. As a Project Manager, you can never communicate too much, you have to make sure that you keep your stakeholders updated. You also have to be checking with your stakeholders to know is they are satisfied with your communication method.
A Project Manager needs to be aware of these barriers so that you can prevent them from occurring or be prepared to address them if they occur.
Political Capital
Many employees possess a reserve of corporate goodwill that is based on their perceived political position and power in the company. This perception, also known as political power, can come from position, and reputation. It is the goodwill that can be used to achieve the desired end.
When a project is threatened, many times the main factor influencing the positive or negative outcome dor the project is the political clout of the project manager and the political clout of the sponsor in the senior management realm. If the project manager cannot resolve serious problems, the project manager will need to ask the sponsor to intercede.
However, these requests should be done sparingly because there is a limit to the amount of political capital that the sponsor will be willing to use for any given project.
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