When Priorities Collide:
Your PM is Your Negotiator in Chief
What business doesn’t have competing priorities? When it comes to projects, operational responsibilities, and customer service it is inevitable that tough decisions are going to need to be made.
Your PM and PMO team, if you have one, should be your Negotiator in Chief. Not just in the moment as a mediator, but in their process overall by bringing transparency and clarity to the tough decisions that need to be made.
The PM: Neutral, Structured, and Business Focused
A skilled Project Manager brings more than a task list to the table. They should bring a neutral, results-oriented mindset to your business. To get their job done, they are likely to have existing relationships with most operations and admin teams and have become experts on company processes to execute efficiently.
Very few other people in the company are so thoroughly connected and engaged throughout your business and none of the other people have a core competence in execution and results delivery. This means that a skilled PM is uniquely situated to understand the people, the impact, and the ripple effects of these tough decisions.
A good PM is the window into what happens if you choose option A over B and serves as the bridge to get you there.
What Your PM Should Bring to the Table
- ✔ A Comprehensive Task List: Breaking work down into actionable components exposes where conflicts, dependencies, and bottlenecks exist.
- ✔ A Clear Project Plan: When everyone can see how the pieces fit together, conversations shift from opinions to facts.
- ✔ A Defined Value Proposition: By tying outcomes to measurable business value, the PM ensures that priorities align with what matters most.
- ✔ An Active Risk Register: Competing priorities often introduce risk. A PM surfaces those risks early so they can be addressed and resolved.
- ✔ Communication as a Priority: The best PMs understand that effective communication is their most powerful tool and work at it diligently.
The PMO: Transparent, Prioritized, and Data Driven
A mature PMO expands on what a PM alone can provide by having highly effective, clearly defined processes and a clear understanding of the bigger picture. It brings clarity to cost, resource allocation, strategic alignment, and initiative prioritization at the larger level. Decisions should not be made solely in the vacuum of a project and the PMO helps the team see the full scale.
With tools and decision-making frameworks, the PMO can set the stage for how tough decisions get made, help ensure that the outcome is possible to execute, and can ensure the outcome is focused on the organization’s strategic priorities.
The PMO sees the forest while everyone else is in the trees.
What Your PMO Should Bring to the Table
- ✔ Strategic Alignment: A tangible way to show how your initiatives align to your strategic goals as well as how important they are to success.
- ✔ A Clear Resource Perspective: Who is working on what initiatives and what capacity is available (or lack thereof).
- ✔ A Structured Decision Framework: Tools to help ensure the decision is based on information, strategy, and outcomes instead of emotion.
- ✔ Perspective on Consequences: What is gained and lost with the decision being made.
- ✔ Alternative Options: The best PMOs are creative problem solvers that leverage the PM team, relationships, and knowledge to find options.
Facilitating Decisions, Not Picking Sides
When priorities collide, your PM team is not there to pick sides. Their role is to highlight tradeoffs, uncover hidden risks, and create space for clear, fact-based discussions.
With the right structure and tools, those conversations stay focused and productive. They give your business leaders the information they need, bringing the right people into the conversation at the right time to reach a decision.
The Bottom Line
Project management done right is the science of strategy leading to execution. True project leadership takes that science and artfully executes, enabling the business to determine what matters most and get it done.
This is where priorities translate into progress and strategy yields results.
Shameless Plug!
If your business is missing your Negotiator in Chief, give RightScope a call. We can help!