Tweet

Stakeholder Management Skills - Taking In The Big Picture

Guest post by: Martin Haworth

Article Overview: Stakeholder management is a vital element of ensuring that your projects are delivered without hindrance or delay. When considering just who can impact on progress, you need to think as broadly as you can...

Stakeholder Management Skills - Taking In The Big Picture

When considering the implications that others might have on your project, it's always possible to be too focused on those closest to home. In fact, where issues arise that can significantly impact on even success or failure of what you attempting to deliver, it's vital to consider as many angles as possible.

If you tend to hold back and only think of those who are closest to the activities you are engaged in, you are pretty likely to find a few unexpected surprises along the way - and these are always the trickiest, because often they will not even have appeared on your horizon at all beforehand.

As such, the challenges they bring will be all the more challenging, because there will have been minimal thought as to their impact and even less on the ways to move them along and continue forward positively.

When you are considering those stakeholders who will be implicated in the activity you are involved in - whether it be an isolated project, or simply a change in a process or activity that might have ramifications for others too - it's best to ensure that you are comprehensive in your scan of those likely to want a say.

For this reason - if not for others as well - you might want to consider ensuring that this is thought through in a wide group of your team, because then there will be more heads chipping in with possibilities too. They have a broader and more creative view on just who might be involved and why.

This also means that whilst you might be perfectly capable of carrying out an assessment of which stakeholders will come up during the project, you might not have all the answers.

The more of your people involved in considering the potential stakeholders, the more likely the list will be comprehensive and the least be missed out. This will give the team a head start and make successful completion much more likely.

You might even consider involving some people who are not directly involved in the activities you are engaged in, simply so that they can have that broader view that you might miss, because you are that close to it.

As you all consider the impact that your work may have and consequently the range of individual affected, there are three key issues you need to consider:-

1. Apart from those directly implicated in the outcomes of what you are working on, who are the second and third level (and beyond) along the way, who might also need to be considered? Those who might not be directly impacted on, but be at the sharp end of other fallout or knock-on effects.

2. What level of damage might each of the stakeholders impact on your project and what could that mean to the outcome?

3. When considering each level of stakeholder, who are likely to be accessible to you and your people directly, so that you could work closely with them to find win-win solutions?

When considering stakeholder management, the level of detail you look at during the early phases may dictate success or failure. Even with successful projects, being able to minimize negative impact by early attention to key stakeholders (and this may mean third level or lower!), will prove invaluable.

Managing stakeholders is not just about attending to the most obvious - most managers and team leaders know this. What is often so vital is appreciating the levels down where concerns may arise and dealing with them at the earliest possible stages as well.

Related Articles
  Examine Buy In with Stakeholder Analysis
  Stakeholder Management - Get Ready To Get Creative!
  Stakeholder Management Skills - Assessing Their Impact
  Stakeholder Management - Using The Team To Share The Load
  Developing Management Skills - Taking Focused Action Is The Key

Article Tags: big picture, management development, managing stakeholders, stakeholder management, stakeholders



Related Forum Posts
Re: New Video - Should I Get A Job Or Start A Business? - Hi Evan, I was curious to know what you'd suggest and I think you gave excellent advice. Taking a year out to try and start your own business is a great idea. Taking a year out after college is a well established option so I guess it doesn't prejudice your chances of getting a job should you wish to do so later on; it probably improves your chances if you've been getting valuable experience of managing a business and of course, if all goes well, you won't need to find out. Definitely a video for my website. Thanks! David
No B.S. Time Management - A great book I read on Time Management is No B.S. Time Management for Entrepreneurs by Dan Kennedy.
Re: Five Personality Traits of Successful Business Owners - 1. Focus 2. Ability to Adapt 3. Hard Work 4. Good planning 5. People Skills
Re: looking for experienced affiliate feedback - Hi Chris, That's a great tip. The real benefit to running an affiliate marketing is getting other people to promote your business for you. Taking a pro-active approach as you suggest will certainly help.
Napoleon on Project Management - Why do I include this in a list of books aimed at female entrepreneurs? Well...in the expectation that there are as many female history buffs as male ones, and in the belief that anyone interested in history will find this book fascinating, while those interested in project management will learn a thing or two. I think this was the first "gimmick" book - an author using a historical figure (usually a male, military figure, it must be admitted) to talk about modern day business management. I refuse to read any of the kind that advocates - even obliquely - the techniques of the Sopranos or the Mossad - but these military ones are pretty fun. Anyway: Only in the understanding of history, Napoleon might say, do we gain an understanding of strategy in the present. In the same spirit, Napoleon on Project Management offers the recipe for successfully managing your commitments using the strategies, tactics and priorities that propelled Napoleon himself to victory. [The book doesn't gloss over how Napolean eventually fell in defeat, of course, and there's lessons to be learned there as well. TOC Foreword by Douglas James Allan (Napoleanic Society of America) 1. The Rise to Power -The Skills to Succeed -A Compelling Vision -Diplomacy and Networking -Lessons from the Great Campaigns 2. Napoleon's 6 Winning Principles -Introduction -Exactitude -Speed -Flexibility -Simplicity -Character -Moral Force 3. The Downfall -What Went Wrong -Lessons from the Russian Invasion and Waterloo -The Four Critical Warning Signs -Napoleon's Legacy


Share this article with your friends. Fund someone's dream.

Leave a comment below or share on the left and you'll help support entrepreneurs in Africa through our partnership with Kiva. Over $50,000 raised and counting - Please keep sharing! Learn more.

Tweet

Newsletter

Get advice & tips from famous business
owners, new articles by entrepreneur
experts, my latest website updates, &
special sneak peaks at what's to come!

Name:
Email:

Popular Articles

Quick Tips on Buying a Business

Making the Most of Your Trade Show Experience

The Golden Rule of Communications

Suggestions

Email us your ideas on how to make our
website more valuable! Thank you Sharon
from Toronto Salsa Lessons / Classes for
your suggestions to make the newsletter
look like the website and profile younger
entrepreneurs like Jennifer Lopez.