Why Hire an External PM for Internal Projects

In my previous article, I laid out five roadblocks many internal PMs confront, which can ultimately cause their projects to crash and burn.

Hiring an external PM consultant for internal projects, while not a panacea, can circumvent these roadblocks and provide a range of benefits to an organization:

1. Rising above office politics

2. Boosting PM process maturity

3. Supporting leadership buy-in

4. Providing support for internal PMs

5. Addressing ambiguities through SOW

6. Bringing in wide-ranging experiences

Rising above office politics

Since for an external PM, the assigned project is a temporary engagement, they are less subject to the pressures of power plays and politics. A consultant can be more upfront about issues, naming the elephant in the room. Through asking tough questions that may be impossible for an internal PM to raise, the external PM will uncover hidden assumptions, interests, requirements, and misunderstandings. They’re not risking much when they rock the boat since soon they’ll be moving onto the next boat!

Boosting PM process maturity

An experienced PM consultant can—at least temporarily—boost the organization’s PM maturity through bringing good processes into their project. Since many organizations don’t understand PMs’ role, having an external consultant educate the organization is helpful. Because the organization is paying the consultant, either to run a project or to advise on how to do it, it’s a given that they believe the consultant knows their stuff. If used carefully, this understanding might provide enough propulsion for the consultant to establish a better process of documenting assumptions and expectations—for example, through designing new templates and facilitating uncomfortable requirements sessions.

Supporting leadership buy-in

Since hiring an external consultant often requires funding authorization, this implies an expectation that the consultant is worth the cost. Internal executive leadership, especially those involved in authorizing the funding, would therefore be predisposed to declare the engagement a success. To some extent, this predisposition will minimize the impact of the perceived value of the project deliverables. For an internal PM who might be accompanying the consultant, this collaboration would provide a protective cushion, and the project would more probably be regarded as a success.

Providing support for internal PMs

An external PM consultant will provide additional value to internal PMs by taking on the responsibility of suggesting approaches that are new for the organization and that may or may not work. In case some approaches fail, the consultant could be held responsible and terminated if desired. While each organization could benefit from new ideas, methods, and practices, adopting something new, even just a template for the project initiation or charter, might be a big deal and make some waves due to the tendency to maintain the status quo. Some PM best practices might even have been proposed by the internal PMs in the past, but sometimes, for ideas to actually be tried out, it takes an external PM.

Addressing ambiguities through SOW

Engaging a PM consultant usually requires signing a legal document—a Scope of Work (SOW)—outlining the nature and role of the work that they will do. This process naturally establishes a baseline for the role the consultant will play and any critical expectations. If the external PM is expected to bring the project to completion, then this issue is automatically addressed. Internal PMs would then be able to use the definition of the consultant’s role to clarify the importance of their own role. Again, in case of conflict, the impact on the consultant’s career is limited since the engagement is by definition temporary.

Bringing in wide-ranging experiences

One final benefit an external PM consultant can bring to an organization is their experiences with similar projects and organizations. As is often the case with long-standing organizations that for decades have followed established processes and dealt with issues insularly, having a newcomer proposing ideas may breathe fresh air into stale and outdated practices. Unfortunately, the longer those processes and practices have been in play, the higher will be the resistance to change that a consultant might need to deal with. Indeed, the extent to which the organization can benefit from their ideas depends largely on its readiness to change and adopt nimbler and more adaptive processes—including in Project Management.