Managing stakeholder engagement effectively
One of the most crucial elements of a successful project lies in the effective management of stakeholders.
If you are a project manager or an engagement expert, then at the outset you need to mitigate risk to ensure collaborative successful outcomes. However, one of the most likely things that could cause your project(s) to fail even if you have strategized everything well and have all the contingency plans in place lies within your stakeholders.
Failure to engage and manage your stakeholders satisfactorily can derail any proposed project and lead to reputational risk and project failure.
Know Your Stakeholders
It is very crucial that you are aware of who your stakeholders are, what are their interests in the project and how can you influence them or get them to compromise when issues are raised. Otherwise, you risk being intimidated that you cannot implement certain strategies or changes.
The result of not managing your stakeholders would be delayed deliverables, budget exceeding, and decreased confidence of the team in the scope of the project.
How to Influence Difficult Stakeholders
Every stakeholder has some interest in your project and you should know how much risk is there for each of them and what is there for them to gain. It could be anything – financial gain, brand recognition, or any other Benefits. It is best to align the final gains of the project with that of your stakeholders’ own interests.
Whenever you go for a meeting, whether online or face-to-face, always bring figures with you to the table. The stakeholders are more interested in knowing where you stand currently and where you can take the project feasibly.
Involve Them in Your Project
When it is about managing stakeholders, you should know what their communication requirements are – how frequently do they want to be kept in the loop and which communication modes are convenient for them to access.
Ensure that you are maintaining fairly regular contact with them and updating them about the progress. Also, asking for their inputs as crucial points would make them ‘feel’ important, thus boosting their trust and confidence in your project.
Keep Your Project Data Organized
When saving all the project related data and conversations, you need to ensure that you are relying on tools that minimize the risk of errors, duplication, non-authorized access, and mislaying of the information.
Since spreadsheets lack the option to have admin control, it is very easy to alter the opinions and feedback shared by stakeholders. In fact, there are chances that somebody might delete the important information permanently.
Manage your stakeholders quickly and effectively using an online stakeholder management tool like Engagement Hub.
Successful Project Managers Employ Online Stakeholder Management Solutions
An increasing number of organizations are switching to cloud-based stakeholder management solutions that allow them to engage with stakeholders at any time and analyze their stakeholder management strategies with easy-to-generate reports.
Engagement Hub is an all-in-one stakeholder engagement and management online tool that also works as a community feedback tool to ensure successful participation and communication while offering the security of data and cost-effectively.
Contact us for a detailed proposal, book a demo to organize an online screen share and discussion of your objectives, or to explore the features in detail on our Engagement Hub demonstration site.
