A guide to succeed in stakeholders management
Successfully managing a mix of personalities, expectations, and competing priorities necessitates employing the appropriate tools and approaches.
When you're in the product development area, dealing with a lot of different stakeholders is the norm. They all come from different backgrounds, have varied expectations, and go about their work in diverse ways. In this article, I'm sharing three situations from my own career that I think are pretty common to see in different companies.
"Why is this not ready yet?"
This situation normally occurs and stakeholders are expecting to have some feature live before the expected date, and due complexity, challenges team has not turned the feature available yet. When collaborating with stakeholders, it's important to identify shared goals, determine an effective communication format, establish the appropriate frequency, and, above all, prioritize building trust.
Identify shared goals: Clearly define objectives that both parties can commit to. This shared understanding forms the foundation of a healthy and solid relationship.
Effective communication format and frequency: Define a communication format that works for everyone involved. Whether it's regular meetings, progress reports, or a project management tool, ensure that the chosen format fosters clear and open communication. Establish a communication frequency that keeps everyone informed without causing information overload.
Prioritize Building Trust: Trust is basic of successful collaboration. Prioritize actions that build and maintain trust between stakeholders, ensuring a positive working relationship.
The relationship will be healthier and stronger when both parties trust each other enough to rely on and commit to shared objectives at the same level.
“We should prioritize this feature instead of other things because that’s what business wants”
Another common mistake that product managers make is to assume that stakeholders share the same understanding and agreement on the product vision and goals. This can lead to confusion, misalignment, or divergence among stakeholders who may have different perspectives, preferences, or agendas. To avoid this mistake, you should align your stakeholders on the product vision and goals from the beginning and throughout the product lifecycle.
You can use the Product Strategy or the OKR framework to help you with this task. By doing so, you can create a clear and compelling direction for your product and ensure that your stakeholders are on the same page and working towards the same outcomes.
Map and classify the involvement of each stakeholder: Determine and classify the involvement of each stakeholder if they should participate, be consulted in specific decisions or the approvers. Probably, the decision-making process will be easier and smoother by doing that.
Create a clear direction: Establish a clear and compelling direction for your product to ensure all stakeholders are on the same page, working towards shared outcomes.
This common mistake often occurs in various companies, where product development teams and stakeholders have distinct goals and targets, sometimes the achievement also count in the bonus of each area. These differences not only influence daily routines, but also significantly impact prioritization decisions. I recommend to align common perspectives and goals that attends team reality, trying to put in place a prioritization approach that bridges both teams' needs.
“I was expecting something different”
This situation normally happens when product managers have difficulty to manage stakeholder expectations and feedback effectively. This can lead to disappointment, stakeholders may feel that their needs and expectations are not met or that their feedback is not heard. You can try to gather feedback during 1:1 meetings and when having a lot of different stakeholders, may apply stakeholder satisfaction survey. By doing so, you can set realistic and achievable expectations, collect and analyze valuable feedback.
Transparent Feedback: Collect and analyze valuable feedback transparently, ensuring stakeholders feel heard, and their input is considered.
Consistent Feedback: Provide consistent feedback to build trust in the relationship. Determine the best frequency and format, adapting to situations when needed.
Ensure you are not only collecting feedback, but also providing consistent feedback. Building trust in the relationship is key to creating an environment where positive and constructive feedback can be openly shared. Determine the best frequency and formats. Normally, I have these moments to collect feedback during 1:1 conversations. However, in situations with numerous stakeholders and limited proximity, I may also utilize surveys to gather this feedback.
When leading with different stakeholders and having challenges to align expectation, try to have empathy, resilience and build trust along the process. Hope this tips help you on the daily challenges!