Keep Politics From Overwhelming Your Project

Have you found yourself on a project trapped in a client political struggle?  With no dog in the fight except your burning, itching desire to reach code complete and deployment?  Well, you aren't alone.  Consultants often occupy some unique political positions with respect to their clients' organizations. 

Since we are not part of the company, we frequently have outsiders' perspectives.  Over the course of our engagements, we survey how relationships work in these organizations, summarily critique the entire culture, and usually end up just shaking our heads.  Other times we feel just as mired in tar pits as the client stakeholders we work with.  Waiting on legal signatures, approval documents, an internal IT resource to complete a precedent task, etc.  And of course, sometimes we defect because our clients' have better gigs...  ;-)   

Now, if you are one (like me) who specifically tries to avoid the whole subject of internal corporate politics then you must eventually realize, as I did, that in real life not everyone is completely earnest or imbued with a puritan work ethic.  Learning how the political game works for your clients, and knowing who the players are, is imminently valuable even if you don't want to join in.

Because the fact is that our client companies' politics are effectively a force of nature when it comes to running projects.  It behooves us to look objectively at this factor EARLY on in a project -- preferably before getting contracted into an intractable situation.  I have learned through a long chain of missed tells and heartaches to pay close attention to the interpersonal dynamics going on with clients.  Those sorts of things can reveal dangers to be avoided or otherwise defended against throughout the project.  Yell-y bosses, ineffective or power-tripping gatekeepers, impossible-to-please approvers; you can often see it in the very earliest project meetings--if you're paying attention. 

That said, it's frankly quite difficult to track all the various wavelengths of information transmitted by clients in early project meetings: technical context and detail, political context, business context, interpersonal relationship context.  You need at least two people to effectively document/remember/witness it all.  I think it even helps to record audio where possible, too.  As throw-away lines your clients utter can be the missing piece that later keeps the puzzle from being completed. 

No matter how it's done, the point is that you should harvest not only the technical details, but as much of the human context as possible.  And keep those tidbits of info in mind as you proceed.  They can aid you in project planning and in managing the overall relationship on a number of levels:

• allowing for slow-moving companies in your timeline
• selecting which client stakeholders you want to deal with and how often
• identifying your allies and enemies within the organization,
• identifying potential problem decision makers
• finding friends where it's advantageous
• saving you from gaffes that jeopardize your project 

Any of these elements can and will, regardless of your project's technical merit or value, blow it right out of the sky.  Seriously, some person up the line is holding the purse strings for your project, and they can be influenced in many ways that are entirely disconnected from whether you are technically succeeding.  I see very experienced and good consultants spend more time and resources managing these elements than they do on the technical details.  Because in some cases, the political value of the overall consulting relationship is equally if not more valuable than the technical help ostensibly being provided...

Now, if this sounds a little Machiavellian, or perhaps a little "Art of War"-ish, well... it is.  Congratulations: this is consulting. You don't necessarily have to jump in and get your Iago on.  But at least knowing about the game can help you play smart when you have to, and to avoid some potential pitfalls and obstacles to doing your "real" job.