Working with multiple stakeholders

Five tips for seamless marketing project collaboration

It’s a week before your campaign launch. You’ve been thinking about this moment for months—and a multitude of people are involved. Sometimes you wonder why some of them are even included because they aren’t following your kickoff guidance or meeting their assignments.

Now it’s down to the last minute and you’re still waiting for Caleb, the product team leader, to provide the technical expertise you need. Janet from the customer success team contacts you with an urgent note: your campaign doesn’t adequately speak to existing customers. There needs to be a meeting—ASAP.

“If too many voices, missed deadlines, and last-mile stress sound familiar,
it’s time for a new way to achieve critical milestones.”

You’re dreading telling senior leadership that this isn’t turning out as planned and your KPIs are shot!

If too many voices, missed deadlines, and last-mile stress sound familiar, it’s time for a new way to achieve critical milestones with a prioritized stakeholder management plan. Developing a plan helps to ensure the right people are involved at the right time, reinforces your leadership role, and reduces the likelihood of delays and heartburn.

Bonus: It’s easier than you think. Just follow these five steps.

STEP 1: IDENTIFY ALL REQUIRED STAKEHOLDERS

Start by asking yourself who needs to be involved to achieve your goal (not who wants to be involved). You may need the collaboration of subject matter experts, comms folks, other marketers, customers, partners, or related industry leads. Obviously, you’ll need final sign-off from someone—or maybe it’s a few people. But first, you have to segment the list.

STEP 2: ESTABLISH YOURSELF AS THE LEADER

When you begin to engage with your stakeholders, be clear about your vision for the project, how you’re measuring success, why they’re involved, and what you expect from them. You must take charge and have a strong opinion about the project workflow.

Get a clear verbal commitment from each person. Asking someone if they’re “on board and able to meet all expectations” is a perfectly appropriate request. If the answer sounds lukewarm, a separate side meeting might be required. Let them know that if they don’t do their part, you’ll find somebody else.

STEP 3: LIMIT THE NUMBER OF PEOPLE AT THE TABLE

Too often, the proverbial “too many cooks in the kitchen” rings true and the person left drowning in a pot of boiling broth is you, the project leader. While it may seem counterintuitive to limit the number of people involved, our experience at Sappington has proven that tight-knit working groups are the recipe for success.

Pare down your list of stakeholders to those who will roll up their sleeves and really do the hard work. Make sure everyone understands their specific roles and responsibilities. You want people to say, “Yes, I can commit to that.” Then you need to hold them to their word.

STEP 4: FIGURE OUT WHO ELSE NEEDS TO STAY INFORMED

Decide who else on your original list needs to be kept in the know. This is your influencer group, people whose opinions you need to consider along the way, and you may need their final approval. But they don’t need to be at your working group meetings.

You may opt to send routine emails to your influencer group or have one-on-one conversations to brief them on progress. The key is understanding their critical dependencies.

Everyone should fall into one of the two buckets: working group members or influencers. If they don’t make the cut, it’s time to trim the fat. You’ll occasionally keep the third, “FYI”, group up to date.

STEP 5: REAP THE REWARDS OF A JOB WELL DONE

Creating a custom stakeholder plan avoids the pitfalls of having people involved in your project who aren’t invested, don’t understand what’s required of them, or have different objectives. It also paves the way for you to manage future projects efficiently and effectively.

You’ve created relationships with team members who respect you as a leader and are more likely to step up the next time you require help. They’re now evangelists for your work and will tell others about the great job you did.

That means you can look forward to your next performance review with a successfully managed project to talk about.

FURTHER READING