Professional Documents
Culture Documents
3.1 Lecture Week 3
3.1 Lecture Week 3
how they need it. Not everyone wants an email or a text. Some people prefer a ph
one call. Others would like face
to face discussions. When possible, you want to try
to work with those preferences. How do you know what
your stakeholders want? You ask them. At the start of your project, consider
interviewing your key stakeholders. Find out what is important to them. Some car
e more about budget than schedule. Some care more about schedule. Some care more
about quality. When you know their interests, you can understand the best
ways to communicate with them. If you combine this with
the other work that you did, for example, if you did create the power and
interest grid, and you know that someone is
highly interested, and has a high degree of power, it's in the
best interest of the project to make sure that you provide them the information
they
seek when, or even before they seek it. And of course, you will have
regularly scheduled communications that are gonna go to the group, like
status updates, presentations and reviews. They're all part of your
stakeholder communications. Once you collect this information,
you're not finished. It's not static; it is dynamic. As your project progresses,
you're gonna learn more. And as your relationships with your
stakeholders grow, you'll understand more about them and their motivations, and
you will want to adjust your approach. Your job is to manage stakeholders
throughout the life of the project, and to keep them engaged from start to finis
h. Your stakeholders are very likely to
be involved in other projects and other work efforts, and it's gonna be
easy for them to become distracted. You help to remind them of
the importance of your project. You continue to show them the vision,
and what will be different, and what will be achieved once
your project has completed. There are some specific engagement
classifications for you to consider. The person who is unaware. This, they reall
y don't
know about the project, and what the project is providing. And your goal is for
this person to learn and understand why this project is important. You at least
want them to be supportive,
and depending on them, you might even want them to
take on a leadership role. The resistant person. This person knows about your pr
oject,
but doesn't love it, they're not in favor of it. They don't like what your proje
ct
represents, or the change it brings about. You would want to try to bring this
person to a more neutral position. In a perfect world,
they would become a supporter. Some people will be neutral. They are aware, but
they're neither supportive, nor resistant. You do not want them to become resist
ant,
and depending on their power and interest, or their power and influence,
you might want them to become supportive. Supportive stakeholders
are aware of the project, and in favor of what the project brings. You want to k
eep these people supportive,
and you want them to become, maybe leaders. Some of them at least. And then you
have those whose
engagement level is considered leading. They know about the project,
they're really in favor of it. And they are proactively supporting it and
working to make the project a success. And of course,
you want them to keep leading. So give them the opportunity to be
in involved in project successes, let them know how important
they are to the project, and let them be in front of people. The stakeholder eng
agement
assessment matrix is a good tool for categorizing your stakeholders. You use it,
you know, to list your
stakeholders, note their current levels of engagement, and
your desired level of their engagement. This helps you to come up with
a strategy for managing them. As you fill out the matrix, keep in mind
the relationships the stakeholders have with you and with one another. If you ma
y have a stakeholder who is
resistant, and they have a relationship with someone who is leading,
a good strong working relationship, you want to partner them
on some project activities. And that way, hopefully, the leading stakeholder wil
l
influence your resistant stakeholder. Be proactive. Do not avoid your resistant
stakeholders,
and do not take your supportive and leading stakeholders for granted. Provide op
en and honest information
about the true nature of the project. Keep stakeholders informed
of critical issues. Ask for their help in issue resolution. And when you and the
team are not able
to resolve an issue, bring it to them. Take the information you have
about your stakeholders and use it to create a communication plan. Follow your p
lan and
make changes to it as needed. Be well organized and consistent in your approach
to
working with your stakeholders. When you see misunderstandings or
disagreements, facilitate a resolution. Be trustworthy and
build strong professional relationships. Remember, projects are completed
by working with others. And on that note,
we're going to wrap things up for now. [NOISE]