Projects are at the foundation of academia. Academics need to not only be able to manage research projects, but also developmental and administrative projects. Just like project managers in a tech company, academics often operate at the crossroads of innovation and execution. As such, academics are greatly helped by being expert project managers as well as experts in their domain of inquiry.

Irrespective of the type of project, it does not happen in a vacuum.  It does not matter if you are a PhD student managing your own thesis project or a professor managing a multi-million dollar, international consortia project. Understanding this is crucial to the success of academic project projects.

In an industry context, the success of a project manager depends not only on delivering projects on time, within scope, and ideally under budget but also on cultivating the relationships and networks that keep the ecosystem around a project thriving and ensuring positive relationships between the organisation around the project, and the project itself. This requirement is exactly the same for academic project managers (i.e., academics).

The “below budget” requirement academics can ignore, however – funders are rarely happy to get money returned, it creates too much administrative overhead …

Conditions change all the time, and this dynamic landscape requires academic project managers to build and sustain various types of connections and capital with a broad array of stakeholders. This is an essential, though often underappreciated, skill in academic project management. Traditionally, the focus is on accomplishing scientific goals, and everything else supposedly happens via a kind of mystical osmosis. But at a university, the human connection and communication around projects play a huge role in whether a project is successful or not. Just like it does in the industry.

The Role of Human Value in Academic Project Management

Depending on which project management author you prefer, the connections or relationships built up between project managers – in industry or in academia – and the myriad stakeholders involved to one degree or another can be called different things – capital, social capital, social currencies, etc.

I always found these to be a bit too inspired by finance, and not really striking at the heart of what the connective tissue we build with our stakeholders is: human value. I prefer having the term human in there somewhere because the strongest relationships with our stakeholders (and remember, your local colleagues and staff are also stakeholders, this is not just about consortia or the department management) are not about transactions, but about human connections. If we see our relationships with people as transactional, we reduce those relationships to being mechanical. Human value means trust, credibility and personal understanding of us as human beings with all our strengths and weaknesses.

If we build value for a stakeholder, and if that value has meaning to them as a human being, they will be much more willing to support us when we need them to. And when managing a project, whether in industry or academia, you will need that support at some point.

Human value can take a variety of forms, but three of the most common are:

1. Social Value: Social value is the network of relationships and goodwill an academic project manager cultivates over time. These relationships are pivotal when projects encounter roadblocks and need admin support, or require additional resources from a head of department, lead professor or dean.

Stakeholders who trust and respect an academic project manager are more likely to offer support, share information, or adjust their own priorities to align with the project’s goals. Building social capital involves consistent communication, showing appreciation, and maintaining a reputation for reliability and competence.

2. Intellectual Value: Project managers often need to demonstrate domain knowledge and an understanding of the broader organizational strategy. Intellectual capital reassures stakeholders that the project manager is competent, well-informed, and aligned with the company’s goals. This can be achieved through active learning, staying current with industry trends, and articulating how the project contributes to the organization’s success.

3. Cultural Value: Cultural capital reflects the project manager’s understanding of organizational norms, values, and politics. Every company has its unique culture, and navigating this effectively helps a project manager build alignment and avoid conflict. For example, understanding the organization’s decision-making style, preferred communication methods, and hierarchical sensitivities can be the difference between a project that thrives and one that stalls in endless approvals.

Stakeholder Management: A Core Competency

Effective stakeholder management in academia is at the heart of leveraging these forms of value. This involves identifying key stakeholders, understanding their priorities, and fostering relationships that align their interests with the objectives of the project (or more likely projects plural, academics usually juggle a lot in parallel) objectives.

Here’s how academic project managers can proactively manage stakeholders:

1. Mapping the Stakeholder Landscape: Use tools like stakeholder analysis matrices to identify those who have high influence over the project and those impacted by its outcomes. Understand their motivations and pain points. This is surprisingly useful

2. Proactive Communication: Tailor communication to suit different stakeholders. While deans and heads of department may need concise updates focused on key results (whether scientific, developmental or administrative), collaborators in a consortium may require detailed insights into dependencies and timelines.

3. Creating Value for Stakeholders: Look beyond project goals to consider how the project creates value for stakeholders. For research projects, does it boost their publication profile? For developmental projects, does it align with their strategic and/or career objectives? For administrative projects, can it solve an operational challenge they face? By tying project outcomes to stakeholder priorities, academic project managers enhance the perceived value of their work.

Building a Supportive Environment

An academic project manager’s ability to influence stakeholders is often as critical as their scientific skills. By fostering an environment where a project generates value for stakeholders (and where those stakeholders feel heard and valued), project managers create a foundation of trust. This does not happen overnight; it requires ongoing effort to maintain strong working relationships.

Moreover, academic project managers must remain attuned to the ever-changing dynamics within their universities. Changes in leadership, budget constraints, new administrative systems, or evolving conditions can all impact stakeholder priorities. Agility – yes even at a university – in response to these shifts ensures that projects remain relevant and supported.

The Bottom Line

University-based projects invariably touch a lot of people, not just researchers but also administrative colleagues and students. This means projects are inherently complex in terms of human value. Academic project managers must embrace their roles as relationship builders and value creators. Delivering projects is only half the battle; ensuring a supportive ecosystem of stakeholders is what drives sustainable success in academia (and it is a very useful parameter in building support for tenure).

Building social, intellectual, and cultural human value is not a soft skill – it is a strategic imperative. For academic project managers, cultivating human value ensures not only the success of individual projects but also their long-term influence and career growth within and across universities.

The next time you think about an academic project, consider the relationships, trust, and value that underpin every task on the project plan. These intangible assets are the real drivers of project success.

The above is based on my practical experiences managing or co-managing projects across all scales from student projects to projects on the scale of 10m+ dollars and dozens of involved staff – across academia and industry for 20+ years. It is not a perfect breakdown of stakeholder management (e.g., stakeholder discovery is missing), but these are things I consider every day.

I am curious to hear other perspectives. Critique is welcome.

Thanks for reading.

My thoughts on games, data and society at www.andersdrachen.com

Books:

Antwork – Two insatiably curious and inventive young girls must develop a new currency to break the power of the all-powerful elite that rules their society. Five stars on Amazon.

Game Data Science: A thorough introduction to the use of data in game design & development, and serves as a definitive guide to the methods and practices of computer science, analytics, and data science as applied to video games. Five stars on Amazon.

Games User Research: A community-driven go-to resource for anyone interested in user experience and user research in games. Five stars on Amazon.