What keeps your stakeholders up at night?
By: Gershoni Shira
Tags: Product, Client Relationship, Product Management, Stakeholder Management, Teamwork

Here’s my methodology, to make sure I don’t miss anything.

It only takes 5 steps:

Map: Who are my stakeholders for this feature/product? Analyze: Why should they care and what will success mean to them? Plan: When and how should I keep my stakeholders in the loop? Act: What and how should I share and reflect on with my stakeholders during every stage of the product? Review: Lastly, collect their feedback and be open to changes.

BTW, if you do it right and in time, these movements won’t completely rock your boat.

How to do it right?

🤗 Know your audience

This is a common product manager’s skill when it comes to our end users. We define personas, try to build trust, create personalized solutions, and put ourselves in their shoes. So why is it more difficult when it comes to stakeholders?

a. Don’t meet with all of them at once.

From the legal to marketing teams or even your clients and investors; they don’t all share the same level of knowledge about your product, they have different responsibilities, and their feedback usually has a different flavor.

b. Choose the right channel for them.

Some would expect you to walk them through in person, while others would be just fine with an email or a notification in a digital shared space (like Notion or Basecamp).

🛴 Start from the basics

These might sound a bit ‘obvious’… but if they’re so obvious, how come most of us hardly do them?

a. Send an agenda before every meeting with your stakeholders, so they’ll also be able to come prepared.

b. Send a meeting summary including their inputs to increase their trust and motivation.

c. Share your ongoing progress and challenges, and escalate when needed.

🎉 Celebrate success!

a. Circle back regarding their feedback.

b. Share ongoing results.

c. Bring cupcakes :) Personally, for me, a product launch could never be complete without cupcakes.

You can’t make everyone happy… or can you?

Here are a few tips that could help.

Don’t be ‘all business’. Create a dialog that is a bit more than just the weather. Especially now, when most of us are working remotely, getting a bit close & personal is always a plus. Engage early and often, and don’t assume they know all about your product. Get familiar with other initiatives they’re involved in, and be sensitive to their priorities and capacity. How Covid-19 is affecting their team, new initiatives they’re involved in, competitors’ influence, holidays and seasonal effects, HR changes, and more, could significantly affect your stakeholders and their teams. Be caring and try to work it out together when possible.

How can you benefit from your stakeholders?

💡 Learn more about the industry. Your stakeholders are experts in their field and ‘picking their brain’ could only level up your game.

📈 Identify growth opportunities. Your stakeholders can direct you to business opportunities like new markets, partnerships, and innovation, but not only. Personal growth within your organization and industry is immensely affected and driven by your stakeholders. Don’t miss out on these opportunities.

👩‍❤️‍👩 Establish a real connection, trust, and peace of mind! Don’t waste energy putting out fires and running in circles all day. Invest in the relationship with your stakeholders and you could gain so much more from a true alignment with them.

To wrap things up… Relationships and trust are key to the success of your product. If your stakeholders don’t support your product, your product will be considered a failure even if you aced every other aspect of your product management process.

Now, scroll up 👆 and map your stakeholders to understand what keeps them up at night.

Hope you found this helpful :)

Shira Gershoni,

Director of Product, Soluto.