You're juggling priorities from various project stakeholders. How do you keep everyone satisfied?

5 key points; - clear communication - set expectations - tailored approaches - manage conflicts - adaptable and show appreciation

Step-by-Step guide : 1. Understand the Purpose/Mission - Vision of project. 2. Identify and define RACI when multiple stakeholders/teams involved. 3. Ensure all stakeholders are on the same page (resolve conflicts identified) and understand their/each one's role in project. 4. Create an Execution Plan. 5. Identify mechanism(s) for timely updates to all stakeholders (a) to keep everyone's priority on top of the initiative (b) to resolve incoming blockers (c) to seek guidance during execution (d) revisit/re-iterate based on metrics/observations. 6. Never forget to appreciate everyone involved from time to time for their contributions.

➔ Meet individually with each stakeholder and get an understanding for what matters to them (What are they losing sleep over?) ➔ Hold an introductory meeting with your client and clearly define the project scope, as well as expected timelines ➔ Use a prioritization matrix to juggle urgent duties with light enhancer targets, making sure pressing needs are met first ➔ Whether you use status updates, or have a committee follow process regular updates will keep stakeholders better informed. ➔ Discuss deadlines and deliveries fairly, so all parties involved feel understood. ➔ Be able to re-prioritise plans based on customer feedback and changing priorities, showing agility in response.

Its all about explaining the WHY to them before asking for their requirements. I consider this as the most important step prior to requirements collection process. All the concerned needs to have this clear understanding why a particular initiative/ project is being undertaken and its expected benefits. Once they have this clarity in mind, they can then communicate their detailed expectations from it. Personally meeting them in a one-to-one setting is the best approach in the first phase, then when a whole list of requirements from all is ready, you can then enter the filtration and or prioritization stage.

I balance the priorities of stakeholders by being open and honest with expectations and by providing regular updates. I adjust and shift requirements and keeps everyone happy by actively listening to them, and their opinions, and match project objectives with their interests.

First of all the project scope is supposed to have been cleared by all stakeholders. It must have been incorporated with requirements of each stakeholder. Secondly, the work is awarded to the successful bidder on competitive cost and a mutually agreed completion schedule. The quality requirements must have been agreed already which the bidder has to meet and they are realistically achievable. Additional work requirements would follow the change management method. Hence, all stakeholders have to be conveyed that the project execution will follow the priorities as per the critical path. Any change would result in scope, cost and schedule escalation. If the client is ready to change priorities and resulting implications, by all means it’s ok.

To keep stakeholders satisfied, clearly communicate the project’s limitations and what can realistically be achieved. Align their goals with a shared understanding of the project’s outcomes and provide regular updates to manage expectations and address any concerns. This approach helps balance priorities and ensures everyone stays on the same page.

One thing I have found helpful is regular status updates through reports or check-in meetings, keep stakeholders informed about progress and any potential challenges.

1. Prioritize tasks based on urgency and impact. 2. Allocate resources efficiently to high-priority tasks. 3. Set clear deadlines and monitor progress regularly. 4. Communicate with stakeholders about trade-offs and compromises. 5. Use project management tools to track tasks and dependencies. 6. Stay flexible and adjust priorities as project needs evolve.

In my experience it is important to Set priorities based on urgency and importance ensures that everyone knows where the team’s focus will lie, which helps manage expectations.

On technical projects it is vital to inform the stakeholders of schedule technical dependencies before agreeing to priorities. You are the technical expert assuring the stakeholders are aware of your technical

1. Implement priority scoring system (evaluate urgency, impact). 2. Input tasks into project management software. 3. Dynamically rank tasks (real-time updates). 4. Integrate stakeholder feedback (data analytics). 5. Push priority updates to team dashboards. 6. Address stakeholder concerns (predictive analytics).

Develop a project status report that addresses all stakeholders' needs and issue regular updates on a set periodicity. Be transparent with any new issues, risks, and opportunities and highlight successes and achievements. Schedule a review meeting with stakeholders where there is face-to-face interaction to discuss in real-time issues and to encourage stakeholders to talk about if they have changing priorities or needs that you need to consider and react to.

This is often problem when we deal with multistakeholders. One of our recent project, we have our requirements as a number priority and others are having priority of 5 and 6. And we can't go live without them. Sametime, we can't wait to test till they onboard, because we have other priorities to deliver. So we negotiated with them by building a simulation system to mock their system behaviors. Here the fair negation is we don't need to change, if they change their system behavior in future. This way, we didn't push their priorities, they are also happy with that. So we have to think from their feet to understand their priorities and give options to other stakeholders.

Managing priorities from various project stakeholders requires clear communication, active listening, and fair negotiation. Setting expectations early and providing regular updates ensures transparency and keeps everyone informed. It's important to establish a prioritization framework, like MoSCoW, to categorize tasks based on their urgency and impact. Approach conflicts with a win-win mindset, seeking solutions that satisfy all parties involved. Ensuring that everyone understands the work balance and the reasons behind prioritisation decisions fosters a collaborative environment, keeping the project on track and stakeholders aligned.

Holistic solution development is always a key to address multiple stakeholder needs with minimising priority clash. It’s always challenging and tedious job to prioritise one customer over other. Also, it’s a natural and unavoidable expectation from each customer that they want to be prioritised on top. During our product development either it’s SW or any other domain, focusing holistic solutions always help better to address multiple customers same time. In this holistic solution, we have to carefully understand each customer needs, listen them carefully, design and define specifications to cover wide range of customers, develop scalable products, adding more pluggable options etc will help one product to maximise multiple customers needs.

Collaborate frequently by bringing all the stakeholders to focused group discussions where they could listen to each others perspective, the objective and the business value they are trying to get out of their requirements. Go to your desk and categorize all the collected information using MoSCoW framework. Develop scenarios showing the outcome by changing priority configurations. Schedule a collaborative session again and present your solution. Convince and influence on requirements with highest business value or urgency, seek consensus and signoff.

Actively track for changes in your stakeholder matrix. - Inside the organization : Eg. Someone promoted or moved to a new position, could mean that the original priorities, decisions may need to be realigned with new stakeholder interests. - Outside the organization : Eg. Changing market trends could trigger changes in stakeholder expectations.

If the stakeholders are internal, consider aligning with the company's goals as the north star. For example, one of my previous organizations focused on making existing customers happy and retaining them rather than blindly getting new customers. So, when we had a project with both acquisition and lifecycle marketing, it wasn't as hard to communicate with them why we are prioritizing customer retention. That is not to say that acquisition projects will always be deferred. We clearly communicated timelines and that they will be deferred this one time but will make way for them in the next quarter. For external stakeholders, consider not having multiple ones in the first place. Understand the root cause of overcommitment and start from there.