-- Communicate your needs early and often to outside stakeholders and their supervisors. Make sure they know what is coming so that they can plan for it. It is often best if you ask for their advice. If you can get them to describe the necessary steps, you will be much more likely to get results when the time comes.

-- Establish an informal relationship with your outside stakeholders. Try meeting them for coffee, lunch or general bull sessions. It makes it much easier to discuss conflicting interests if you have previously established a friendly relationship. You may not always get everything you want, but you can negotiate fair trade-offs.

-- Use periodic risk-analysis sessions to prebrief your sponsor on potential problems. Don't wait for the problem to arise before letting your sponsor know about it.

-- Often, your sponsor can provide subtle backdoor influence regarding departments outside your direct control. Don't be a whiner, but dependencies on other personnel should be discussed as a risk far in advance. And in particularly political environments, a mitigation plan should be discussed with your sponsor.

Rarely does a project manager have control over all of the people and things that may affect his project. In the best case, communications, both formal and informal, can prevent difficulties from arising. But in the worst case, it ensures that the difficulty is not a surprise to anyone. -- W.M.