Presenting the Project to Management

Start at the End

When you begin a presentation, you want to capture your audience’s attention. You want to hook them and reel them into your project idea. One of the most effective ways to do this is to start at the end. Tell your audience first what the proposed project will deliver. Forget all the techno-babble—that only impresses geeks. Management wants to hear facts.

For example, Susan is implementing a real-time transaction server for databases across the United States. She could go on about how long each transaction will actually take, the number of processors in each server, and the network connecting each site—but who cares (other than IT folks)? To grab the attention of management, she needs to open with the end result: “Our company will be 33 percent more productive by implementing this technology. From coast to coast, our customers can buy more products in real time with a guarantee of when they’ll ship. Of course, this means our company will be more savvy, more advanced, and more profitable than our competitors.”

Wow! Now Susan really has management’s attention. She now has to back up her statements with the proof she’s already gathered from her initial research. Once she has delivered the “punch line,” Susan should immediately “show her cards” as to why she’s so confident the implementation is a good thing. A slideshow or charts to show the expected growth would be most excellent—and most convincing—but it’s easy to fall in love with the medium, not the message. Slide shows (ahem, PowerPoint) can be painful to sit through, boring, and overdone when they incorporate flashy animations that aren’t relevant to the message. Keep it simple.

The WIIFM Principle

The WIIFM, or “What’s In It For Me,” principle is the ability to make a presentation touch the audience members so that they see how they will benefit from the proposal. When an IT project manager pitches an idea, he has to show the audience, typically management, how this technology will make customer lives better, improve profitability for the company, and make the company superior.

Professional sales people call this selling the benefits of a product, not just the features. If you do present a feature, always back it up with a benefit. For example, “This new system has a gigabyte of memory (feature), which will enable each user to increase productivity by twenty percent.”

Obviously, whenever you get an idea to implement a new technology, you’ve got some personal reasons: productivity, an easier workload for you, an opportunity to work with technology, career advancement, and maybe some personal reasons you wouldn’t say out loud and deny even if you were asked. Management will have similar reasons for implementing, or not implementing, your plan. You have to realistically look at four major points in the WIIFM principle to determine if your plan is viable:

Profitability If the ROI on your project is small or nonexistent, proceed with caution. Remember, all businesses exist to make money; make certain your project helps that goal.
Productivity Examine how your project can increase the productivity of the company. Not all projects will increase productivity for everyone, but at the minimum it should not hinder productivity.
Personal satisfaction At the core of WIIFM is the ability to personalize the project. Find attributes of profitability, credit for implementing the technology, new sales channels, and other benefits that will make management (and you) happy to implement the plan.
Promotion Think of how the project can promote the company’s products, but also think how it can promote careers—not only yours, but the decision maker who will see the advantage of the project and may become your project sponsor.

WIIFM is not all about greed. It’s thinking for the other parties. It’s showing them the need that they may not see. WIIFM is creating a win-win solution for the parties involved. There’s nothing wrong with thinking about the interest of the parties you are pitching your presentation to—in fact, it’s required if you want their approval.

In many instances, the project manager gets the project dumped in her lap, a slap on the back, and a hearty handshake. In other words, there’s no pitch to management, or anyone else, to get the project off the ground. An effective project manager, however, should investigate why this project is needed, how it helps the organization, and what exactly the project must deliver.

Tailor the Presentation

If you are speaking to a group of executives who have but a few minutes to hear your proposal, you need to quickly get to the point in terms they can understand. Forget about processors and bandwidth altogether with this crowd—focus on the benefits. If you’re pitching to a group of managers who have a background in technology, then show them the details of the technology and how it increases productivity, profitability, and sales. Figure 3-2 shows the overlapping scopes a project manager must consider when addressing an audience. The point is, know your audience ahead of time and tailor your presentation to that audience.

Figure 3-2: Project managers must address several factors in a presentation.

If you are presenting your plan to a group composed of upper management, middle management, and your immediate supervisors, always address your presentation to the decision makers—typically upper management. Whomever you are speaking to, tailor your presentation to what they want, and need, to hear to make a decision. Here are five tips to help you do so:

What is your track record? If you’ve gained approval in the past but blew the implementation, that’s experience for you and them. If you’ve worked as a project manager before and failed miserably, management is going to be less excited to give you another opportunity until you can prove yourself again as a team player in other project implementations. Consider the Lessons Learned from the prior project and how it can help you on this new project. You may want to approach your immediate boss and discuss the proposal with her help.
Do they really want to listen? You need to determine if this is the best time to even be talking about new ideas. If the company is in turmoil, financially, emotionally, or technically, your chances are diminished for implementing new projects—unless your project can resolve the turmoil.
Are they listening? Remember, you’ve got to speak the language your audience needs to hear. Describe your project and its deliverables in the business terminology your audience speaks, and you will be heard.
And who are you again? If you’re low on the totem pole, you may have big ideas, but little track record. In this instance, your idea may be valuable but you aren’t recognized—yet. Partner with someone in the company who is a valuable leader and work with that person to pitch and manage the project. Use teamwork.

How does this help? If you are getting this question from your audience, then you are not starting at the end. Show them, in their language, exactly how this helps. Show them how this increases profitability, what the ROI is, and why it should be implemented.

Are you following the rules? Does your organization have formal or informal guidelines and procedures to pitch new projects? If so, follow the rules. Other organizations, and people, have enough on their plates that they don’t dream of starting a new project until they can catch their breath on their current assignments. Find the rules to make a project a reality and follow them.

For each presentation, it would behoove you to have handouts of your overheads, charts, graphs, and any other pertinent data. Your feasibility plan is ideal for this collection of handouts if you’ve had the opportunity to complete one. Whatever you decide to disperse, always include an executive summary near the front of the plan so the reader can skim over the details and get the hard-hitting facts first. Of course, you should write the executive summary with your audience in mind.

Role of a Salesperson

Robert Louis Stevenson, the author of Treasure Island, said, “Everyone lives by selling something.” No matter what you do for a living, you are selling something: time, wrenches, advice, a service, or a product. When it comes to presenting your idea to management, you have to slip into the role of salesperson.

When you think of sales, dismiss the sleazy, used-car salesperson image. A good salesperson is someone who identifies a need and then helps to fulfill it. That’s what you have to do here. You’ve identified a need through your research, and now you may have to show management where that need exists and how this technology will fill it.

When selling an idea, speak in direct, simple terms. If it takes you longer than five minutes to express the reason for the technology, you’re talking way too long. In fact, an excellent summary of the technology and its benefits should take less than a minute. For example, if you’ve determined the solution to the problem you’ve been presented with is to implement Macromedia Dreamweaver for your web designers, provide the supporting evidence for your recommendation. You have done the research, interviewed the developers, and explored the cost of the decision, right?

To open the presentation, you’d say something to the effect of, “Macromedia Dreamweaver will increase productivity, streamline the efforts of our web designers, and allow for collaboration of in-house and external developers. The time saved alone will pay for the product in less than a month.” This is assuming you have the evidence to support this statement.

Again, you’re starting at the end, but the whole idea and pitch is done in less than a minute. You need to capture your audience’s attention and draw their interests into the plan. Everyone wants to be part of an investment that works. Show them immediately how your plan will work and then invite them to participate.

Part of presenting to management is also an informal presentation. You may know this as the infamous elevator speech. You know the drill: the CEO sees you in the elevator and asks, “So what are you working on these days?” And then you can sum up your project in 20 seconds or less on your elevator ride. This elevator speech is handy to summarize your project to anyone anywhere—not just for your favorite CEO in your favorite elevator.

Super Business - Project Management Articles

Presenting the Project to Management