Agenda Intro 30 sec each 10 minutes Name organization years in product management and most interesting comment you have ever been told by a stakeholder Groups of four 20 min Share the most challenging stakeholder situation you have encountered and how you resolved or didnt ID: 782313
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Slide1
Stakeholder Management
8/4/2016
Slide2Agenda
Intro (30 sec each, 10 minutes)
Name, organization, years in product management and most interesting comment you have ever been told by a stakeholder
Groups of four (20 min)
Share the most challenging stakeholder situation you have encountered and how you resolved (or didn’t!)
Stakeholder Management Strategies Presentation (20 min)
Groups of four (20 min)
Each group pick a stakeholder type and summarize strategies for Management
Regroup (30 min)
Each team present their strategies back to the group (5 min each)
Slide3Stakeholder Management Process
Slide4How to approach stakeholder management?
Slide5Identify stakeholders
Slide6Stakeholder Identification
Traditional: Managers, Department leads, Business leads
Organizational Politics, Review & Approve, PMO
Agile: Peers, Agile Team, Sales, Marketing, Development
Team autonomy, peer to peer stakeholder
Slide7Most Common Stakeholders in Product Management
Executives
Sales/Marketing
Support/Implementation
Engineering/Development
Design/Creative
Customers
Slide8Analyze your stakeholders
Slide9Stakeholder Needs
Executives
How does this product relate to the bottom line and company strategy?
Sales/Marketing
How do we convince people to buy this product?
Support/Implementation
How do we insure customer success with this product?
Engineering/Development
How do we build this this product?
Design/Creative
How do we maximize the user experience of this product to make it amazing?
Customers
How does this product solve my problems?
Slide10Stakeholder Communication Mapping
How much control over resources and decisions does your stakeholder have?
How much do they care about your work?
Slide11Stakeholder Behavior and Expectations
Slide12Stakeholder Behavior and Expectations
People Styles, Merrill & Reid
Slide13Stakeholder Behavior and Expectations
People Styles, Merrill & Reid
Slide14Stakeholder Behavior and Expectations
People Styles, Merrill & Reid
Slide15Stakeholder Behavior and Expectations
People Styles, Merrill & Reid
Slide16Stakeholder Behavior and Expectations
What are the core motivations and behaviors of your stakeholder?
Slide17Stakeholder Type
Sales, Marketing
Executives
Development, Engineering
Support, Services
Slide18Communication Tools
Slide19Communication Tool: Active Listening
Be sure to empathically listen to your stakeholders needs…
Slide20Communication Tool: Organizational Politics
Politics occurs when two people interact
!
Financial
or emotional
interest?
Current opinion
of your work?
Information source? Influencers?
Are influencers stakeholders?
Plan how to bring them to support
9
]
Plan how to manage
their
opposition
Who do stakeholders influence
Slide21Communication Tool: Organizational Politics
Resource: “I wish Id known that earlier in my career: the power of positive workplace politics” Jane Horan
Slide22Communication Tool: Social Exchange and “Stroking”
Every interaction accumulates reservoir of good or bad will
This adds up over time!
Full bucket=favors and forgiveness
Empty bucket=blame and no forgiveness
Especially important in sales, support and peer to peer relationships
Slide23Communication Tool: Transactional Analysis
We adopt ego-roles in our relations with others
Parent/child/adult
Relate to your stakeholder on their level or as an adult
Parent: “You must build this feature in the product..”
Child: “I don’t understand why you never build in the features we ask for…”
Adult: “ Let’s’ work together to understand what might be possible..”
Reference: “Games People Play” Eric Berne
Slide24Communication Tool: Problem/Solution
Always be sure to get to the root cause of a request…often a solution is already available
!
Ask:
“What is the problem the user is trying to solve
“Tell me more about why you need this feature..”
“Let’s talk with the customer to understand the use case
..”
Offer Alternative:
“I know you asked for this, but based on your need this approach may work better…”
Slide25Communication Tool: Negotiation
Most requests are a negotiation…
Both parties should feel “Win-Win” interaction
Especially important in working with sales
+ Issue -
- Relationship
Slide26Communication Tool: Delay
Sometimes the best approach is to delay a response…
Take the request seriously, and don’t immediately decline
It also gives you time to find a negotiating point.
“Let me investigate a bit…”
“Let me regroup with development to understand technically what this might require..”
Slide27Communication Tool: Respect, Defer, Data
Allow the other party to own the decision
Express respect for their expert knowledge
“I trust your expertise…”
Be sure to present your perspective backed up by data
Allow for candid, direct critique and “fierce conversations”
Crowdsource the analysis
Slide28Manage and Monitor your stakeholders
Slide29Manage/Monitor Your Stakeholders
Use your analysis to create a plan for each major stakeholder or stakeholder group
Manage and update that plan over time to assess if changes need to be made
Slide30Activity!
Slide31Exercise:
Break into groups of four and select a stakeholder persona from the list below:
Executive
Sales
Support
Development
Design
Marketing
Customer
Develop a plan for managing & communicating with this stakeholder
Present your plan back to the group
Consider:
Communication Needs
Communication format
Political factors
Driving motivation in role
Behavioral motivators
Challenges likely to be encountered
Approaches for overcoming challenges
Slide32Marketing/Executive
I admit, I couldn't quite read these!
Slide33Marketing/Executive
Marketing
Executive
Slide34Sales
Talk with them in person/phone, not over email
Requests:
Don’t just say no, instead take the time to listen empathically to their needs
Build relationships with sales. If they feel you have done your due diligence in investigating a request and in helping them with other requests, they will be more accepting if you cant complete the current requests.
Be sure to track what you have done in the past to show
proffo
of what you will continue to do in the future-if you are trying to
convice
sales or a customer you can deliver on a feature, create a visual map of previous features delivered upon as a timeline.
When they make requests, place them in your product backlog and help them understand it
isnt
just “No” but more like “not right now, but maybe in the future”
If they have a significant demand, ask them to help you validate the request by verifying opportunity size. Ask them to commit to delivering on that opportunity size.
Good guy, bad guy approach can sometimes help.
Remind of Sales management alignment at a strategic level when asked for requests that are not aligned with strategy.
For GTM, Focused communication on their needs
Recognize their needs often tie to numbers
Messaging/positioning is most important, not all details of the product
Provide buyer personas and market segmentation in a concise GTM package
Slide35Creative/Design
Reaffirm their value to the team and project
Provide feedback in a positive-critique-positive sandwich, so they feel affirmed
Help them understand the context of the problem by providing information about use cases, personas and why a change needs to be made
Set office hours for communication, but maintain boundaries to prevent excessive back and forth
Ask the 5 whys when trying to understand something that seems confusing
Recognize their reasons (they usually have reasons) and try to be understanding
Ask them to help understand not only the usability and aesthetics of the problem, but the ROI as well
If in conflict or disagreement, use customer testing as a way to resolve
Be certain to provide clear requirements and clear personas to the creative team to prevent having to rework or change later