Accepting complaints

Every project manager will, throughout their career, receive and need to action stakeholder complaints.

A complaint is any approach (written or oral) to the project manager or team member expressing concern, dissatisfaction, or discomfort about any statement, action, or behavior of another stakeholder.

Here is what you should do when receiving a complaint:

Listen

First, you should thank the complainant for bringing the matter to your attention.

Even if the complaint is (in your opinion) trivial or vexatious, respecting the complainant’s angst should give them an immediate measure of relief.

It is equally important that you remain neutral and don’t immediately take their side against the stakeholder they are complaining about.

Your role here is to accept ownership of the complaint and the steps that follow.

Record

Next, you should go through the complaint in detail, recording the salient points as they are presented to you (that is, without your overlay of analysis or interpretation – that comes later!).

Check that you have understood and recorded these details correctly and document what their expectations are, including what they see as the ideal resolution.

Do not compel them to put it in writing themselves!

By all means, invite them to do so if they are willing; however, it is wilfully ignorant to pretend a complaint does not exist if it isn’t in the complainant’s hand.

Written complaint protocols are (often intentionally) a bureaucratic barrier to receiving negative feedback.

Note that in nearly all legal systems, police and lawyers regularly record statements on behalf of complainants – you should be willing to do the same!

Act

If it is within your power and appropriate to do so, you may be able to resolve the complaint on the spot.

For example, you may have demonstrably misstated something – correct that misstatement!

Otherwise, commit to following up and be specific about the next steps you will take, including when you will get back to them.

Be careful, though, not to promise what you cannot deliver!

Again, thank the complainant for bringing the matter to your attention and commence the investigation/escalation protocol that is (ideally) defined by your organization.

At the end of the day, complaints should be seen as an opportunity to improve stakeholder relations and project performance – what you do next will strongly influence these outcomes.

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Resolving complaints

Every complaint that cannot be immediately resolved should trigger an investigation.

The complainant should always be allowed to stay off the record or remain anonymous throughout the process; however, they should also be made aware if this will in some way limit the investigation (for example, if asking certain questions would reveal them as the source of the complaint).

If the situation warrants it, the complainant should also be removed from contact with the person they complained about, and allowed to expand upon, clarify, or withdraw any part of their complaint at any time during the investigation process.

An investigation typically involves:

1. Reviewing any relevant documents or media
2. Interviewing relevant stakeholders
3. Analysing your findings
4. Recommending a course of action

These steps are discussed in more detail in the Unit on Closing Projects, as they are essentially the same steps followed when conducting a project review.

Importantly, the person complained about should have the right to review and respond to the substance of the complaint, including any supporting, exculpatory or mitigating evidence gathered during the investigation.

The principles of natural justice should also be adhered to, including:

• Ensuring a complainant or respondent is not victimized or discriminated against 
• Considering complaints in a consistent, transparent, objective, and unbiased manner
• Specifying reasonable timelines for responses to each stage of the process
• Allowing the complainant and respondent to be accompanied or assisted by a third party if desired
• Ensuring that all records of the complaint and its investigation are treated as confidential

Whether the complaint is rejected or substantiated (in part or whole) will determine what corrective or restorative action is taken, with all impacted parties needing to be kept informed throughout and made aware of possible avenues of escalation or appeal.

Once resolved, you should also seek feedback on how the process was handled – particularly from the complainant’s perspective- and put steps in place to prevent the issue from recurring.