• You assume that you know enough about the project to plan it without the time consuming and 'issue raising' input of participants.
• You work in a 'tell' oriented culture where asking for the ideas and input of others isn't a well-accepted management practice.
• You don't think the time spent will be worth the time saved or the result improvement that's likely.
• You don't want to make any supervisors or managers nervous by circling around their direct reports with the look of a project participant recruiter in your eyes.
• You don't know what to ask.
• You'd rather get the project going quickly and handle problems as they arise (these are the same folks who like to jump out of airplanes first and then knit their parachutes on the way down).

Why You Should

You can give Prime Movers a realistic project budget based on the very well informed input of people who know the work better than anyone else.

You avoid the participant bad feelings, sandbagging and/or outright work stoppage that can result when you plead with participants to 'find a way' to produce your project results without the resources they'll need.

You get expertise and 'simpatico' by forming largely self-selecting project teams in which mutual confidence, respect and efficient communication habits are already in place.

You save time and, consequently, money by substituting your best guesses about key work efficiencies with the input of the people who know the processes and technologies that are best suited to the particular project.

You identify the showstoppers that only experience can anticipate, making it possible to build contingency plans and to develop realistic expectations among eager Prime Movers.

You cast a light into those planning blindspots that too many project managers only discover when they realize that a critical workpath/milestone trail has been overlooked (and must be backfilled at great expense).

 

Some Tips On How To

As with Prime Movers and End Users, bring a list of participant-appropriate topics (see item above) and probes with you to each interview, upgrade your list as participants ask things you hadn't anticipated, take note of their answers, start with open probes and close each topic with one or more closed probes and do everything you can to actually LISTEN to what they tell you.

Look for tell tale signs that suggest the participants' level of organization and time management ability. These signs include file/office orderliness (pile file system vs. actually using the cabinet), ability to retrieve information for you quickly and the use of a non-computer-bound planner. (People whose only planning tool is an application on their desktop computer can easily get overbooked when project work takes them further than the cables/cords will allow the computer).

When probing for signs of project-specific competence, focus on their actual and relevant work experience rather than asking general questions about their ability. (Few people willingly admit to ignorance, but most people will honestly tell you what they have and have not done.)

Probe for signs of project enthusiasm (you're trying to gauge the priority that they'll give the project and just how much 'selling' you'd have to do to get enough of their time). Rather than asking "Is this project something you think you could really support?", ask a probe that doesn't signal the 'right' answer so clearly; eg. "If you were to sign on to this project, what do you think would be the most interesting (challenging, stimulating, satisfying, etc.) aspect of your work?"