Stakeholder Engagement and Stakeholder Management are arguably the most important ingredients for successful project delivery. Stakeholders of a project are individuals, groups, or organizations that are affected or perceived to be affected either positively or negatively by a decision, activity, or outcome of a project. A stakeholder group can help it live out the pillars of scrum (transparency, inspection, and adaptation). Ways stakeholders can do this include:

Stakeholder Engagement
  • Offering insight and perspective into users’ experiences and needs 
  • Providing feedback on the completed work
  • Providing guidance for future iterations
  • Suggesting new ideas or features 
  • Sharing expertise 

Let’s take a look at the possible barriers in the way of effective Stakeholder Management

  • Difficulty in keeping stakeholders engaged.
  • Some stakeholders might have a specific vested interest in the success of a project. But, some just participate to share their comments.
  • There can be hindrances concerning information access, transparency, and tooling. 

Stakeholder Management

The stakeholder management process encompasses the following steps

Identifying Stakeholders – Identify stakeholders on basis of who can: Provide a voice of reason, Facilitate the change that comes as the outcome of your project, Lead opinions, Remove impediments, Slow down your project, Enhance your project & Impact your project.

Analyzing Stakeholders – When analyzing stakeholders use criteria such as Stakeholders with High Interest and High Influence, High Influence and Low Interest, Low Influence and High Interest & Low Influence, and Low Availability Stakeholders.

Prioritizing Stakeholders – Use Stakeholder Mapping i.e. classify them based on their level of interest, impact, and influence.

Engaging Stakeholders – Apart from the Scrum events you may engage stakeholders through use case modeling, User experience mock-ups, Questionnaires, Customer Interviews, Brainstorming sessions, Requirement workshops, etc.

Frequent Communication –  it is important to communicate with stakeholders about their rights and responsibilities. 

Classification of stakeholders (Engagement Levels)

  • Unaware – Stakeholders who are unaware of the project and potential impacts.
  • Resistant – Aware of the project and resistant to change.
  • Neutral – Neither supportive nor resistant.
  • Supportive – Would like to see the change happen and has a positive outlook toward it.
  • Leading – Actively engaged in ensuring the project is a success.
  • Managing Stakeholders: Managing Communication, Managing Vendors, Managing Distributed Teams

Stakeholder Engagement during Sprint Review

  1. Make their value clear. One of the most important things you can do for your stakeholders is to make it clear why they are so valuable to you and your mission. 
  2. Spend time getting to know your stakeholders personally. You can do so by utilizing icebreakers at the beginning of the review to connect and bring in some fun. Another way to do this is for the product owner or team members to have one-on-one meetings with stakeholders. 
  3. Understand what value means to your stakeholder(s). At your next sprint planning, craft a sprint goal that clearly communicates why the work you will do is valuable to these stakeholders. Share this at your next sprint review and do something courageous by asking, “This is what we thought would be valuable. How valuable is it (or not) to you?”
  4. Recognize that the relationship is a feedback loop. Collaborating with the stakeholders is part of a process that informs the work of the scrum team. Stakeholders weigh into the work at the end of the sprint during the review, which then impacts the priorities of the product owner and the team’s work the following sprint. At the end of the sprint, the team will receive feedback and input from stakeholders once again. This is a recurring process that allows the team to inspect and adapt.  
  5. Don’t focus on one group of stakeholders. Remember, stakeholders, represent the needs and perspectives of various community members. It’s important to consider all of these needs in a balanced way and to make space for everyone’s insight.
  6. Put your review time together to good use. Utilizedemos to show the stakeholders what you’re working on and how their feedback influences what you develop. It is important for stakeholders to see the impact of their feedback to know their time spent with you is impactful and leads to action and improvement (for the product, initiative, etc.). 
  7. Show the stakeholders the impact of their participation. Make sure stakeholders feel heard and make a point of showing them where your team incorporates their feedback. This creates more excitement for stakeholders and interest in attending reviews consistently. 
  8. Try different ways of collaborating. Lean coffees are a great way to meet outside of review to collaborate to solve problems, have important conversations, and learn about additional opportunities. 
  9. Make sure communication channels remain open. This means the stakeholders can easily communicate with the scrum team, and vice versa. Digital communication tools are a great way to open up space for conversation and collaboration outside of review.
  10. Ask the stakeholders how working together is going. It’s important that the review meets the needs and expectations of your stakeholders. Ask for feedback on the process of working together, as well as the work itself. 

Interpersonal Skills for Stakeholder Engagement

Active Listening

  • Level I– Internal Listening (thinking about how things will affect me)
  • Level II – Focused Listening (trying to understand what are the speaker is really trying to say)
  • Level III – Global Listening (keep track of not only what has been said but also the different signs and gestures the speaker employs to convey the full message)

Negotiation

  • Determine the power, influence, legitimacy, history, and background of the party that you are going to negotiate with.
  • Determine what stance you would need to adopt and the minimum that you would settle for.
  • Do a SWOT (Strength, Weakness, Opportunity, and Threat) analysis of the negotiating parties that will help to devise a strategy.
  • Be objective and separate people from the problem (the negotiation topic).
  • Anticipate issues and reactions from negotiating parties to help in arguments and counterarguments.
  • Arm yourselves with data and facts to justify your stance (and weaken the one from the other side).
  • Determine which of the negotiation tactics are most applicable to generate a win-win outcome or the most favorable one.
  • Remain professional at all times and be diligent in your argument. But save some tactics up your sleeve for the last resort.
  • Envision the worst-case result if a favorable decision has not arrived at the end of the negotiation. Have contingency plans in place
  • Saying No to stakeholders by explaining the cost. Explain the items like the effort to develop this idea gives a poor return on investment. What you would have to give up to work on this idea instead. What is the expected divergence from the product strategy or roadmap. What is the compromise to the overall user experience any accrual of technical debt?

Conflict Resolution Techniques

  • Problem Solving / confronting – solving problems by examining alternatives
  • Compromise – seeking common ground that brings in some degree of satisfaction for all parties
  • Smoothing / accommodating – emphasizing on areas of agreement rather than differences
  • Collaborating – considering multiple views and perspectives, ultimately leading to consensus and commitment
  • Withdrawing/avoiding – retreating from a conflicting situation
  • Forcing – pushing one’s view over others, resulting in win-lose outcomes

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