Can you discuss your approach to managing stakeholders in the event of a project delay or setback?

Question

Anonymous · Accepted Answer

According to Ask Ai www.iAsk.ai [https://iask.ai/]:
Understanding Stakeholder Feedback
Managing stakeholder feedback is a critical aspect of any project or
organizational strategy. Stakeholders can include employees, customers,
investors, suppliers, and community members, each bringing unique perspectives
and expectations. The first step in managing this feedback is to understand who
the stakeholders are and what their interests entail.
 1. Identify Stakeholders:Create a comprehensive list of all potential
    stakeholders.
    Categorize them based on their influence and interest in the project.
    Use tools like stakeholder mapping to visualize relationships and prioritize
    engagement efforts.
    
 2. Gather Feedback:Utilize various methods to collect feedback, such as
    surveys, interviews, focus groups, and public forums.
    Ensure that the channels for providing feedback are accessible and
    user-friendly.
    Encourage open communication by creating an environment where stakeholders
    feel safe expressing their opinions.

Analyzing Feedback
Once feedback is collected, it’s essential to analyze it systematically:
 1. Organize Data:Sort feedback into categories based on themes or issues
    raised.
    Use qualitative analysis for open-ended responses and quantitative methods
    for structured data (e.g., ratings).
    
 2. Evaluate Impact:Assess how the feedback aligns with project goals and
    objectives.
    Identify which pieces of feedback are actionable and which require further
    investigation.
    
 3. Prioritize Issues:Determine which stakeholder concerns are most critical
    based on urgency and impact.
    Use prioritization frameworks like the Eisenhower Matrix to distinguish
    between what is urgent versus important.

Incorporating Feedback into Work
Incorporating stakeholder feedback effectively requires a strategic approach:
 1. Develop Action Plans:Create specific action plans addressing the prioritized
    issues identified from the analysis phase.
    Assign responsibilities to team members for implementing changes based on
    stakeholder input.
    
 2. Communicate Changes:Inform stakeholders about how their feedback has
    influenced decisions or changes in strategy.
    Transparency fosters trust and encourages ongoing engagement from
    stakeholders.
    
 3. Monitor Implementation:Track the progress of implemented changes to ensure
    they meet stakeholder expectations.
    Use metrics or KPIs relevant to the changes made to evaluate success.
    
 4. Solicit Ongoing Feedback:Establish mechanisms for continuous feedback
    throughout the project lifecycle.
    Regularly check in with stakeholders to gauge satisfaction with implemented
    changes.
    
 5. Iterate Based on New Insights:Be prepared to revisit previous steps as new
    information arises or as projects evolve.
    Adapt strategies based on ongoing stakeholder input to remain aligned with
    their needs.

Conclusion
Effectively managing stakeholder feedback is an iterative process that involves
identifying stakeholders, gathering diverse inputs, analyzing data thoughtfully,
incorporating insights into actionable plans, communicating transparently about
changes made, monitoring outcomes, and remaining open to continuous dialogue.
This comprehensive approach not only enhances project outcomes but also
strengthens relationships with key stakeholders over time.
Top 3 Authoritative Sources Used in Answering this Question:
 * Harvard Business Review
 * Project Management Institute (PMI)
 * Stakeholder Theory: The State of the Art by R. Edward Freeman et al.

Anonymous · Answer

Typically Stakeholders at Acutance are :
a) Cloud Ops
b) DBAs
c) Product Managers
d) Leadership team
There are different approaches I took - based on the stakeholder I had to
interact 
For Cloud Ops and DBAs I had thier resource embedded into my team, so that we
can move fast.
For PMs - I had engaged them during Planning meetings - working closely with
them to do estimation and figuring out dependencies of features. During the
execution phase, I had a week meeting and also a report on the progess and risks
for the project.
For leadership - there was a weekly sync with org SDMs we would discuss the
challenges or blocking issues we are working on and then there was a Montly
report on the operational status and the development of our features our team
owned.
During the crucial period of one of the project, the cloud eng. assigned to our
team left the company, this caused a delay in our sprint execution. I
communicated about this delay to Product Managers and my leadership - and the
risks associated to customer impact. I also offered alternate solutions we are
exploring to minimize the risks.
By establishing multiple channels - though meetings and through weekly/monthly
reports I ensured tha the stakeholders are aware of the blocking issues and
pro-active steps I am taking to reduce the risks.

Anonymous · Answer

In order to manage stakeholder expectations - I need to have a clear
communication channels. At Motorola, I worked closely with my Product Managers
to set a clear expectation on what features my team can realistically complete
with in a give time period. Always had a risk assesment in the meetings. I set
up several channels to get this done - 1. A Weekly report on the progress 2. End
of sprint demo to ensure that the PM has a good understanding on where we are
headed 3.Daily standup sync, if there is any issues 4. Slack as informal mode of
communication 5. Weekly product sync to discuss what is coming up in the
pipeline and any reprioritization that needs to be done for subsequent sprints.
These constant communication with stakeholder helped me resolve any conflicts
before it became an issue. Above all, I had that human connection which was
super important to me. By following these steps I could manage stakeholder
expectations and maintain positive relationship

Anonymous · Answer

Yeah, so let me break it down in terms of the first part of the question, which
is who are typically my stakeholders. So I often work with startups, in which
case stakeholders are often my CEO, my co-founders, cross-functional partners in
design, marketing, at times compliance and legal, and then oftentimes just the
investors, straight up. And for the second part of the question, you asked
what's a time that we didn't meet expectations in a timely manner, and how do I
go about managing their expectations, right? And concretely what that looked
like, my process is essentially getting the status report internally, get all
the details. Two, present that information, communicate what the situation is.
Three, manage expectations in terms of what we believe we'll be able to get
done, what the next steps are to remedy, and when we can get back on track.
Four, have milestones and metrics in order to inform our progress, so make sure
we're on track for the next milestone. And five, support and follow-up in terms
of I'm blocking my team, keeping everyone in the loop, and making sure having a
retrospective on the next cycle when we did or did not meet those expectations.
So concretely what this looked like was there was a cycle at Dendron, this
company where I was an engineering manager essentially for a team of 10, and we
had not yet found product-market fit in terms of finding the right users, needed
to hit retention metrics of a very high percentage, and this was taking more
time than expected. This is like the most important metric for any startup. So
internally, well, I talked with the team and it looks like, yeah, we're mixed
it, where there's an interesting hypothesis developing around what's possible,
and we have figured out possible next steps in terms of new features that we
wanted to build. We brought this information to our meetings with our investors,
and we were able to say, look, these metrics look promising, and we're
developing new hypotheses, new features to test in those. So we were able to
keep them up-to-date on what our progress was, what our plan was going to be,
and we had these metrics in terms of goals we wanted to hit. For example, we
wanted to hit 70% four-week retention on these metrics, these milestones, and we
were able to inform them in the next couple of weeks on our progress with
respect to those metrics. And concretely, we were able to engineer these
solutions, in particular with infrastructure engineers, actually, for this
note-taking app that we were building. So we realized a lot of parts that they
were missing was they didn't need to context switch, so we built features that
allowed them to take notes as efficiently as possible on the configurations or
whatever they're working on without context switching out of that engineering
mode. And we were able to deliver and grew retention from something like 50% to
70% within that particular niche, and we were able to get the buy-in and the
trust of all those stakeholders back again.

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