Do you know what you've got?

I was talking to the MD of a medium sized business the other day. He told me excitedly how they had just hired someone with technical experience in an area he was keen for his business to get into. At last, he suggested, they would be able to develop this part of the business with confidence.

He was quite surprised when I told him that I had been talking to another existing and more senior member of his team who also had extensive technical experience in that same area. And this other person had only been hired about a year ago. Had he not known about this area of expertise when he'd hired him, or had he simply forgotten? If he'd had a desire to get into this area, had he not discussed this issue and the organisation's capability with his team?

There is a danger in formulating strategy, in analysing an organisations strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats, from within the ivory tower of the C-suite. To succeed in strategy, you've got to get out there and talk to your staff, customers (and prospects) and partners. You've got to build relationships and engage with people around strategic issues on an ongoing basis.

Project Stakeholders have conflicting agendas

One of the biggest challenges in project management is managing stakeholder conflict. Even at the most basic level, different stakeholders have different relationships to the project.

• Team members - typically work on a single project for a long period of time. As a result their personal identity becomes wrapped up in the project. They lose objectivity and may try to keep the project going long after it makes sense to give up.

• Users - often see the project as unwanted interference - a change to be resisted. And if they carry the domain knowledge, they are uniquely positioned to consciously or unconsciously undermine it. (Although increasingly, it seems, projects have customers rather than users.)

• Sponsors - are more likely to see the project as one of many potential investments they currently have on the go.   Their perspective is almost completely the opposite of the team members, as they have to consider how much resource they give them and whether or not it's time to pull the plug.

A successful project manager understands these conflicting agenda and is able to keep them in balance.