By Nicole Murphy, Leadership team, APS Academy
Often when you consider managing a project, the focus is on the deliverable itself and the team that you’ll be assembling (or been given) to achieve the project. You might not consider looking upwards until you have to report to your supervisor, or the responsible governance entity.
In managing upwards, either to your manager or a broader project governance body, it is important to ensure the governance arrangements are fit for purpose and key stakeholders are given an appropriate level of exposure to the project. Consideration should be given to the style, frequency and purpose of project reporting and how you demonstrate impact up the line. How do you do that?
We’ve done the research, and this is what it boils down to.
It starts with you
It starts with you and your presence in the organisation. Your supervisors and governing bodies have certain expectations of you.
Are you reliable? Do you deliver? Are you effective? Are you working as per the APS Values and Code of Conduct?
If you want people to listen to you, to be invested in your project, to be able to influence people, then you need to fulfil this basic expectation.
Then you need to have a professional relationship with your supervisor (and maybe their line manager, and potentially even line managers above them). This will develop over time, but the types of things you need to consider include:
- Do you actually understand what they do?
- What does success look like for them?
- Are you providing them with ideas?
- Are you asking them questions and leaving them feeling you understand what they need?
- Are you offering assistance when you can see it is required?
- Are you being open and honest with them? Particularly if you make a mistake.
Once you’ve built this social and organisational capital with your supervisor and the organisation, don’t waste it. If you are finding yourself in a position where you need to push on something, only do it on things that are worthwhile. Like your project.
Onto the project
At its basic level, managing up on a project is about the same thing as managing down – communication. What you need to communicate and how you communicate will change, but you need to be clear, concise, evidence-based and inviting. You want to win your supervisor over to your side of your project. Make them your champion.
Communication preferences
Whoever you are communicating with will have their own preferences. If you don’t know a particular person or forum’s preference and this project is important enough, then find out. You don’t want to kill your project before it’s even had a chance because you’ve not used the right template or you’ve written a whole page description for a person who prefers dot points. And yes, this may mean you need to write the same thing in several different ways, but it’s important to recognise that the people you are communicating with have many pieces of communication coming to them. Be aware of two things:
- They are making immediate judgements on the importance of a piece of work by how it is presented to them. If you can’t make the time to present it properly, why should they make the time to consider it important?
- They are wanting to be able to judge apples against apples as much as possible. Following preferred communication styles or templates allows the person being communicated with to focus on the content.
Influencing decisions
People make decisions based on two factors – emotions and logic. So your communication needs to cover both these aspects.
EMOTIONS
Storytelling – you want to state your case in a compelling way and for humans, nothing is more compelling than a story. Story telling, at its very base, is explaining what is going on, why it is going on, what are the problems being faced, then solving those problems. Note that the level of detail required to explain the problem and the solution will probably get smaller, the higher up the chain you are going. SES for example are probably less interested in how you will do something and will want to know why you should be doing it and what the impact will be.
Tailor your message – what does this agency/executive/supervisor care about? What are they on the hook to deliver themselves? What is their passion? Have your story focus on their areas of expertise or interest. The way you sell your story to the Chief Financial Officer will be different to the way you sell it to the Learning & Development team, for example.
Be responsive – When you go in to present the project, be ready to respond to what is happening in the room at that moment. When a question is asked – answer it there and then. If you don’t understand the question, ask for clarification. And make sure you really understand what the question is asking – it could be that what the executive really wants is a complete change to the direction of your presentation, and the way they’ve shown this is to ask ‘How does this fit in with the agency priorities?’ Just answering the question and then backtracking your presentation to information that doesn’t fit with that conversation won’t work.
Be respectful and open-minded – be ready for the conversation to go to places you didn’t want to go. Maybe you need to go in prepared for the difficult questions if you know the project might be controversial or something your leadership haven’t wanted to do before. Listen to their concerns, and don’t be dismissive of them, but show with your response that you are being respectful of what they are thinking and feeling.
LOGIC
Fulfil agency priorities and objectives – the very first piece of logic your leadership will look for is how does this idea fit into the agency priorities and objectives? Particularly if what you are proposing is a new idea, or reinstituting an idea that was previously abandoned. So you need to very clearly show how it will enable the agency to fulfil something it has to achieve.
Have evidence – every proposal and suggestion you are making should be supported by evidence. And not just one piece of evidence. Have several strong reasons why this should be done. Present a realistic cost-benefit analysis of the project, not just the benefits. We can’t escape the fact that we need to be accountable for what we do with public money and resources. So share that up front. Don’t allow there to be any surprises.
Ask questions – explore the idea with your leadership. Find out what they want or need (early in the development of the project, if possible). Work with them through some of the possibilities and how to explore options.
References
5 ways to influence up in the workplace – Harvard Business Review
How to influence upwards – Greatmanagers.com.au
Influencing upward: the skill you need to get ahead – The Muse
4 keys to influencing up – Inc. Australia
Influencing up – Marshall Goldsmith