During the life of a project, we will encounter various stakeholders. And dealing with various types of stakeholders means that we will need to adapt our interactions to each, depending on their positions and needs.
For us to improve our work, what we have to do is to identify what are the stakeholders types we are dealing with and what is important to them.
Before going into more in detail, let’s begin with what are stakeholders?
It is easier to think of them as people that:
- Are interested in the outcome of the project
- Are affected, either directly or indirectly by the outcome of the project
- Have a say in the project and/are are able to influence it
If we are to go through the above-listed points, we can notice that contrary to the misconception of some, we actually have to deal with quite a large variety of stakeholders, each with their own interests in the project.
The main stakeholders categories can be divided between:
- External stakeholders: clients, contractors and users
- Internal stakeholders: team, executives, sales and marketing,
In addition to identifying the category a stakeholder belongs to, we should also analyse the influence it has on your project and the interest, together with the risks they imply.
With knowing the influence and combining it with its interest, we can balance the amount of information we provide.
We can begin easily with a communication plan.
Internal Stakeholders
Team
In the midst of pressure from the customers and/or executives, we might spend less time providing the needed attention to our team. After all, they should be one of the most important, as without them we do not have the end result.
The team needs to have an efficient communication within, and extend that to the rest of the stakeholders. Promoting teamwork and collaboration early on will help that. People will feel comfortable reaching out to one another and to us as well.
Also, when we discuss the scope, we should keep in mind that the team needs to also understand the whys behind our decisions or client’s decisions. They need to also know the reasons of the work we do and how this influences the business of the customer.
I noticed a few times something that I deem worth mentioning, especially for the ones among us that are more technical: try to stick with giving a few guidelines on how to do something instead of the complete set of steps. Each has its role within the team, so let’s take care of our tasks ourselves, while each member of the team deals with their own.
Last but not least, we should avoid micromanaging people. Of course that once we communicate what is needed, we should be available for the team. However, being available, have regular check-ups does not mean we should continuously question them and the status. The team needs to see that we trust their experience and expertise. Trust is shown by also giving them the possibility to discuss certain technical aspects directly with the customer or with a third party, and not only have this being filtered by us.
Executives
The executives represent a very important stakeholder category. They provide the funding, they decide if a project should begin or not and they can also move forward with closing a project.
In our interaction with the executives, we need to understand why it was decided to initiate a project and the strategy within.
In addition to this, we also need to bear in mind that executives, regardless of how important strategically and financially a project is to them, they have limited amount of time and a particular terminology. Having this in mind, we should keep the communication short and essential.
Sales and Marketing
Although in my experience so far with the sales department I sometimes felt that they were more of an extension of the customer than of us, these are people that have most pressure during the time before a project actually begins.
After all, they have to get from the customer an agreement that add value to the customer while it is also in the company’s favour.
We can build from the beginning a trusting relationship by keeping a clear communication with the sales team. They need to understand what we are working on, and the reasons for taking certain decisions or proposing certain solutions.
This will make it easier for the sales team to reach an agreement with the customer, while also make our lives easier in the long run for the project and the customer ultimately satisfied with the result of the project.
While we do have a clear communication with our sales team, we need to keep in mind they are interested to sell. We should take it with a grain of salt and check the importance and priorities of certain requests.
As for marketing, in order for them to develop a strategy that is inline with what is being developed, we should have them involved early on the project.
Communication does not need to go into technical details, but clarifying the scope, the reasons behind it and regular progress will help immensely in the long run.
External Stakeholders
Customers
Customers are most interested to get the highest value for their money, so most of the time we will end up spending a lot of time and effort understanding and working on making them happy.
Building a trusting relationship from the beginning is essential. They are reaching out to us as they need our help, while we need to give them the support based on our expertise.
And while we are discussing the support we should provide, we need to also be honest in our advices. The customers are balancing a budget.
We have to explain what can be done in the reasonable time and within that budget. For this to work, we need the customer involved. We need them to prioritise what is important and reach a minimum viable product with our help.
In regards to status communication, balance is again key: we should keep a balance between the technical and business communication.
Contractors
Contractors are similar to our teams, with the only difference being their priorities.
They have an interest in reaching the scope with us, the team, our customers, executives. etc.
However, they also have costs and revenue they need to keep in mind, so this, together with a corporate culture of their own, can raise some challenges.
Most challenges can be overcome by underlining clear expectations and plans from the beginning.
In addition to this, we should do our best to make them feel as part of the team as possible – this, of course, depends on the time that they will have to be involved during the length of the project.
Users
Depending on what product we are developing and for whom, our users might be our customers.
However, for the purpose of covering more possibilities, I will talk about them separately.
Users are easy to identify: they are the ones that use the product.
And just because they can use the product, we should not take them for granted, but do our research as to what they need.
In this day and age, users have many possibilities and are also tech savy, so good investment in user experience is key.
I summarised the stakeholder interactions I encountered so far, but I am interested if you got a different experience and how you handled it – please feel free to write a few lines at say-hello@projectmanagementlifopedia.com
I touched upon other subjects that can help you in the stakeholder communications and project delivery:
Cultural Dimensions: understand why they do what they do and adapt your interactions
MVPs – for faster and efficient delivery of a minimal but sufficient initial product
silvana comanici-stoianov 