How do you include stakeholders in decision-making?

The RACI matrix (Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, Informed) is a valuable tool for stakeholder identification and defining roles with clarity. By utilizing this matrix, you can easily identify who is responsible for specific tasks, who is accountable for the overall outcome, who needs to be consulted, and who should be kept informed. For instance, imagine you're managing a project. Using the RACI matrix can help you avoid confusion and ensure that everyone understands their roles and responsibilities. Consider incorporating this tool into your project management toolkit to streamline your efforts and enhance collaboration.

In my experience, stakeholder identification is a crucial step in managing the stakeholder management process. One important thing to note is that the identification should be iterative. As you learn more about the project, the organization, and you begin to conduct interviews, your stakeholder list may grow. Document them, understand their impact to your project and share your stakeholder list with other stakeholders if you can. Stakeholders know who should be involved with decision making and who could have an impact on your project. Stakeholders want to be engaged as early as possible. We need their participation to ensure project success. Identify your stakeholders and bring them with you along the way.

I find it’s usually pretty obvious who your stakeholders are, they are essential to a successful delivery so I involve them from the start and throughout the entire process. Use experience to determine what is relevant and EQ to the level of interest. This a human process and needs human sensitivity.

Once we identify the stakeholders, we can communicate with them through emails, surveys, or setup meetings, workshops to solicit their feedback by communicating the purpose and process. Then set realistic expectations and boundaries, such as the scope, timeline, and resources of the decision.

I agree to this and want to add one more observation from my experience that is when BA is done with stakeholders’ identification, He/She should also analyse the personal behaviour and attitude of stakeholders which helps in working with them. That helps the BAs to deal with them very effectively and the interaction becomes much easier and interesting.

The Power - Interest Gird/Matrix is a really good tool to understand which stakeholders are important for the success for the project. It helps in prioritizing interactions, as stakeholders with high power and interest should receive more attention and engagement due to their significant impact on the project's success. Using the Power-Interest Grid as a reference, communication can be tailored to each stakeholder. It also helps BAs and PMs to proatively engage and address stakeholder's concerns and increasing the chances for the project's success.

Stakeholders that have the most influence and ROI value are typically prioritized. However, other factors like key projects that are critical to the company but have less stakeholder influence may be prioritized. These discussions usually occur at the top leadership levels.

To include stakeholders effectively in decision-making, start by identifying key stakeholders, both internal and external to the organization. Engage them from the beginning, maintain transparent communication, and collect their feedback through various channels. Analyze and consider their input, striving to balance conflicting interests when necessary. Be transparent about the final decision and its rationale. Establish a feedback mechanism and document the process for accountability. Maintain ongoing engagement, adapt as needed, and ensure legal and ethical compliance. This approach fosters stakeholder ownership, enhances decision outcomes, and mitigates potential conflicts.

Stakeholder Prioritization is completely based on Influence vs Interest. - We shall consider their level of influence. Who has the power to make decisions that will affect your project? - We shall think about their level of interest. Who is most invested in the success of your project? Of course, there may be other stakeholders who are also important to prioritize, depending on the specific needs of your business. For example, you may need to prioritize suppliers, partners, or government regulators. The best way to prioritize stakeholders is to use a combination of factors, such as their level of influence, interest, and impact on the project or business. Hope this helps!!

This is indeed the next step once stakeholder identification is completed. It is paramount that once we have identified all stakeholders (internals and externals), we updated them in a stakeholder mapping (power and influence). What will be key will be to understand which stakeholders (wherever they are on the matrix) will be your advocates, champions, resistant to change etc... This will be key as well to define your persona.

Stakeholder Engagement relies heavily on interpersonal skills, including taking initiative, integrity, honesty, collaboration, respect, empathy, and confidence. These skills and attitudes can help everyone adapt to the work and to each other, increasing the likelihood of success. Engagement helps project teams detect, collect, and evaluate information, data and opinions. This creates shared understanding and alignment, which enables project outcomes.

Often, stakeholders may struggle to articulate the reasons for or against engaging in a project or process. By actively listening and putting oneself in their shoes, then posing questions to clarify their motivations, mutual understanding can be enhanced. Additionally, sharing a compelling story that highlights the benefits of their engagement can further stimulate their support.

It is very important to have the proper governance according the complexity and the size of the project. Each stakeholders (strategic, management, execution, users...) have a different role to play to make a project a success. Everyone can understand a delay but no one can understand not being aware of a delay.

As already discussed above, involving stakeholders in decisions is crucial. When stakeholders are involved in the planning and execution of projects, they're more likely to support the outcomes and be willing to contribute their expertise and insights. This can lead to better decision making, more innovative solutions, and a higher chance of success. Agility demands an open mind and a willingness to collaborate. One of the most important lessons I've learned about stakeholder engagement is not a one-size-fits-all solution. We must tailor our approach to each stakeholder's needs, interests, and involvement. Hope this helps!

To encourage stakeholders to engage, it is crucial to understand their needs and expectations. Stakeholder engagement is key to a project's success. If some of the stakeholders who were initially excited about the new project are not actively participating, it may indicate that the project is not meeting their expectations. Therefore, it is highly important to involve them in key decision-making points. This approach will make them feel like an essential part of the group.

One thing I have found helpful is to present communications, particularly complex ideas in a visually appealing method. This helps break down communication barriers and promotes healthy discussion with stakeholders.

Not all stakeholders are well-versed in understanding raw data. It is crucial that all the information shared with stakeholders is easily understood by them, enabling them to provide insights and contribute to the project's success. Tailoring communication to meet the needs and expectations of each stakeholder reduces the back-and-forth exchanges that waste time, energy, and resources, which could otherwise be directed towards the project's success.

Project communications are typically a key step in change management and adoption. You want your stakeholders to be the biggest supporters at the end of the project. Including not just information but benefits for them along the way can help turn stakeholders into active participants and final project evangelists. People have lots of learning styles so multi faceted communications can be very useful (written, meetings, recordings, diagrams, mock-ups, data). Good communication can take time especially if you make sure people/teams have time to digest, think, research, and make key decisions (some of the best decisions involve the wide neural variety) and they may need processing time; so you might pre-send comms before meetings for example.

To have an effective communication, you need a strong chief of orchestra that will have strong soft skills related to communication management, presentation management, stakeholder management and risk management. What I found very helpful in the recent years it was to add few Agile mindset in the way those communication plan was delivered (daily stand up, retrospective, more formal communication top and less formal communication dowm...)

In my experience, stakeholder communication is very important, and it must be timely. Formal communication should be made. If possible, set the timeframe to communicate and gets feedback to understand the point of improvement and point of excellence. Businesspeople might not understand technical Jargons. So, communicate following 3C's i.e., clearly, concisely and consistently.

This may sound like an obvious and easy job but I’ve seen many BAs identified the wrong stakeholders and ended up going on the wrong direction. Sometimes some roles required for decision making are not filled with people, making it impossible to make a decision. Another common mistake is not asking of people according to their roles. People’s involvement in the decision making process should be decided by their roles.

What is important to consider here is the nature of the project, the nature of the decision, and the stakeholders involved in the decision-making process. After this, defining the roles and responsibilities of stakeholders in the decision-making process is crucial. Clearly communicating the final decision, the rationale behind it, and how it incorporates the stakeholders' input will ensure that stakeholders understand why the decision is being made. Taking these points and other factors into account will lead to a well-accepted decision as a result.

Below are steps that effectively worked for me in involving stakeholders in decision-making: 1.We should start by Identifying key stakeholders. 2.We should engage with stakeholders through interviews, surveys, workshops, and one-on-one discussions to understand their needs. 3.We should prioritize stakeholders based on their level of influence and impact. 4.We must develop a stakeholder engagement plan (RACI) that will outline the overall flow. 5.We should maintain open and transparent communication with stakeholders. 6.We should continuously manage stakeholder expectations by ensuring that they understand project constraints, scope, timelines, and potential risks.

Identify key stakeholders, keep them informed on project progress and challenges. Seek their input on critical decisions and include them in relevant meetings. Share decision rationale through transparent reporting, confirm understanding and acceptance of decisions, adjusting as necessary based on their feedback. Maintain open communication, fostering positive relationships to facilitate better stakeholder involvement in decision-making.

Defining stakeholders and communicate with them effectively in a way to ensure that they will be part of the decision-making (if required) is essential for the health of any project. However, this is just one of the essential stream to make a project healthy and could not work with the right management of scope, expectations, risks, quality, testing, support, etc...