Defining Your Project - Project Planning and Management for Ecological Restoration - page 38

Identifying answers to these questions is one thing. However, managing project sponsors and other
stakeholders can be challenging because they commonly have very different perspectives with
goals that may conflict with one another. Finding appropriate resolutions to such differences is
a major challenge of project management. The project team must identify the stakeholders on a
project, determine what their needs and expectations are, and then manage and influence those
expectations to ensure a successful project. In general, differences among stakeholders should
be resolved in favor of the project sponsor. Of course, one significant challenge is to ensure that
whatever the concessions are, the project still conforms to the attributes of ecological restoration.
Whereas goals are strategic, objectives are more tactical in nature and are the means by which
goals are brought into reality (fig. 3-1). Understanding the differences between and relationship of
these two words will serve you well in the planning phase of a project. Understanding and using
objectives is SMART (box 3-4).
Consider the examples of goals and their associated objective statements for the following sam-
ple project, Cowden Preserve. Keep in mind that goals are attained, not measured, and objectives
are specific and measurable.
FIGURE 3-1. Understanding the relationships among action, objective, and goal is critical to a
successful planning phase.