Editor's note: The title of this post was changed on 9 December 2011.

Do you make time to identify your requirements for managing a project? Sure, you plan and manage the project, but as a program or project manager do you also identify your needs for running the project and the team?

It's important to know what we require of our team and stakeholders. When these needs are clearly identified and communicated, it's easier to track and manage the related project tasks and variables.

For example, I recommend that you require your stakeholders to attend meetings and give input during the change management process. You'll need the decision makers to assist you in evaluating the need for change.

When you set and express this participation as a requirement, your stakeholders understand your requirements and their own importance. Further, when a change is requested during the project, it doesn't come as a surprise that you expect stakeholders to be involved in the process.

When it comes to your project team, maybe you require team members to be on time for meetings and to submit progress updates. Communicating this as a need and setting the expectation helps ensure that team members give timely feedback when needed. When team members meet this particular need, you're able to meet your own deadlines with the customer.

Setting and communicating project management requirements are nothing new. For the most part, these needs are automatically expected from everyone involved in the project. But failure to pen down and communicate each need usually leads to more project challenges. For example, team members may start to argue, finger-point or shake off their responsibilities. There's also the possibility of missing a milestone -- and that's something to avoid.

Take time as the project manager to set your requirements for running the project. And do so as a high priority.

What requirements do you establish for managing a project? Do you communicate these to the project team and stakeholders?

Successful projects meet or exceed key stakeholder expectations and requirements. How can this be done when working with the client, sponsor, senior management and users of the project's deliverables?

The need to effectively manage stakeholder expectations is a consistent theme in the PMBOK^® Guide. This goes beyond the simple delivery of specified requirements -- it covers all aspects of a project's work and the manner in which it's accomplished.

The first element is to ensure the project's deliverables will actually meet the requirements of the project. Failure to do so means an unsuccessful project. Take the time to ask the right people the right questions -- after all, they expect your deliverables to work.

The next step in building success is to map the expectations of the key stakeholders. Do you really understand what they expect from the project?  

Accurately mapping expectations requires skillful listening and the ability to decipher what's meant, not just what's said. Don't be afraid to enlist senior management to ask questions on your behalf. As you begin to understand your stakeholders' expectations, they will fall into two groups: realistic and unrealistic.

Realistic expectations still need managing. Make sure you can fulfil them -- then make sure the stakeholder knows you are meeting them. Your communication plan must present the right information to the right stakeholder in the right manner.

Unrealistic expectations are more difficult to manage. They are unlikely to be met, and when you fail to achieve the "impossible," the project will be deemed a failure. Fortunately, expectations are not fixed, but exist in a person's mind and can be influenced or changed.

The key to shifting stakeholders' expectations is to provide new and better information.

Developing a communication strategy that brings the right information to the stakeholder's attention in a believable fashion is a subtle art. This is particularly tricky when advising upward with the goal of changing senior managers' expectations. (I'll write more on this in my next post.)

What challenges have you faced in managing key stakeholders' expectations? How have you found success in managing and meeting those expectations?

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