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All right, so in the last episode I talked
about how do identify project stakeholders.
Getting to know the people you'll be working with
or for is important when you're working
on a project and you're managing expectations
and you're really educating folks
on the roles and the responsibilities
and what they're going to need to do during your project.
Let's be honest, that work it's never easy.
You know, people are people.
And by that, I mean everyone comes to the table
with different expectations, different experiences
and even differing attention levels.
So I always think it's a good to take an extra step
to engage your stakeholders about your project
before you actually jump into the work.
And that's typically done through stakeholder interviews
which are essentially one-on-one conversations
with folks who have invested interest
in the success of your project.
And if you're running a full-scale project
chances are your team
is gonna conduct stakeholder interviews.
These interviews with a variety
of people and positions and different roles
in the organizations can give your team a really
clear understanding of goals, challenges, feature requests,
and even personalities within the organization
or the team that you're partnered with.
You know, as a digital PM
I scheduled and conducted hundreds of interviews
with stakeholders on projects, on many projects
a strategist might've conducted the interviews
while I sat in and just took notes.
But there are plenty
of instances where I actually led the interviews as well.
You see a lot of people see stakeholder interviews as just
an opportunity to gauge the full stakeholder team's goals
intentions, and motivations for the project.
And they're absolutely right for that.
I mean, of course that's a good idea.
Don't get me wrong here.
But I think that if you are a motivated
and informed project manager to those interviews
you'll get a lot more out of those sessions.
So I think that you should use your time
with stakeholders to ask important questions
about the project and its goals and requirements
but there can be a ton of value in having a conversation
about how you might best navigate the organization
to make sure your project is discussed, understood,
and actually ends up a complete success
after all if anyone knows the ins and outs
of projects and how they succeed or fail in an organization
it's going to be your stakeholders.
So if you want to get ahead of those issues
just ask a few simple questions
and I promise you you'll uncover a lot
of information that could impact your plan
how you communicate about the project,
how and when you present your work and maybe even
some insider information on team politics issues,
or risks that you'll definitely want to avoid.
Here's the thing.
Remember how I mentioned
that most PMs don't conduct those interviews.
Well, you know, that's fine.
Don't take on the work.
If someone else can do it, I'm not telling you to do that.
And you don't impose yourself
on those interviews if you shouldn't be there.
In fact, if you're not conducting the interviews yourself
I think that you should definitely suggest some questions
to incorporate into the interview script
in the conversations so that you can get
a deeper understanding of the culture around the project
and how they're typically run
within your stakeholders organization.
No questions about how projects have worked in the past
and how decisions are made combined with questions
about goals and values can definitely help
to inform your approach to managing the project
and really managing your stakeholders.
One quick tip here
whether you're conducting these interviews
or not be sure to record them, trust me, conversations
like this are chock full of great detail and information.
That's sometimes hard to capture in notes alone
especially if you want to be a part
of the conversation and not head down
in your notebook or your laptop, furiously taking notes.
So no matter how you participate.
I think listening is really key here.
Be sure to listen for details that will help
your team understand the organization
and how your project might actually roll out.
You might hear comments
about ownership of processes, documents, and tools.
Politics surrounding decisions, opinions
about similar projects, design, process, communications,
and the many other things they might share.
Related projects partners, and possible dependencies
which are important.
Details about routine meetings, presentations, holidays,
outages, and the like things that take up time right?
Details around the launch of your project.
And if it includes dependencies for time-sensitive stuff
like planned events, campaigns, meetings, and such, right?
And lastly, you know, mention of other stakeholders
relationships, disagreements, office politics,
and other juicy details, that might impact
how you navigate the project.
That's a lot to uncover,
but to me that's what makes those interviews so much fun.
You know, you get to learn
about the people that you'll be working with
and you also get to begin to kind of build relationships
with key decision makers.
And at the same time, you get to better
understand the project that you're going to be working on.
All good stuff.
You can also gauge how each person views
and values the project.
And you'll even learn some things that might impact
how you manage it all.
Having all of that information in one place
coming straight from the horse's mouth
or the stakeholders mouth it's like hitting the PM jackpot.
I mean, seriously, you get great information
from stakeholder interviews, just listen and take notes
and remember use and refer back to those notes.
Anything that could be a project risk
or a potential issue to think about
is something that you should call out
and eventually discuss with your team
and your main point of contact.
If one nugget of truth, about an opinion, person, issue,
or processes is raised.
And you can adjust your plan slightly
to avoid a major issue.
You absolutely win and we all love winning all right.
So you might be wondering what type
of questions you might ask.
I'm going to show you some sample questions on screen here.
If you want to use these questions, either hit pause now
and write them down or in a second and write them down,
Or grab the free stakeholder questions download
in class number nine of our art and science
of leading projects video series
which you should definitely check out.
It's all about keeping stakeholders happy and engaged.
Okay, so first you want to dig into project goals
at the point of doing interviews, you're really early on.
So you're likely, already informed on top level goals
but this is your opportunity to dig in
on the individual level to talk
about how the goals were set and why.
It's also your chance to see
how each stakeholder might be impacted by those goals,
or if they are anyone else on the team
has a dissenting view.
I like those kinds of questions
because you get the information you need
for the project itself, but you also get some insight
into where you might come across some organizational issues.
Then you'll want to dig
in a little bit more on the stakeholder team
and their preferences on how the work with you
understanding who the people are, is great
but knowing how they work and what they're expecting
in terms of process can be incredibly helpful.
If you watch the last episode
you heard me talk about the swoop and poop.
Clearly you want to avoid that.
So dig into the makeup of the team
and make sure you're accounting for all stakeholders.
It might feel redundant asking this question
but you'd be surprised how many stakeholders can show
up out of nowhere, mid project.
And you definitely want to avoid that at all costs.
At the same time, you want to be sure
that your stakeholders are actually thinking
about how they'll work together on the project.
So ask some questions about their expectations
of how the project will run
and who actually owns the process on their team.
If you come up with dissenting views
you'll quickly resolve any issues related
to decision-making that can hold your project up.
Then just knowing who knows what can be so helpful
because I've worked on a lot of technical projects.
I like to get a sense
for how technically savvy my stakeholders are
or if they even understand the type
of project that we're working on, you'd be surprised.
So just having that kind of information
will definitely help me to determine
how much time I'll spend on stakeholder education,
how much I need to really spell things out.
And honestly how much I need to remind people of things.
Again, all of this stuff will impact my plan
and the success of the project.
So finally, you want to dig into
how the project will be managed.
Ask about their communication preferences
to make sure your important messages are actually
landing with everyone.
Talk about how you'll deliver status updates,
engage their interest in being included on those.
Side note about that inclusion.
If they, they don't need to be looped in regularly
a red flag might go up on your side, it should.
Take note, right?
And be sure that you've worked out a plan
your lead stakeholders so
that they can take some responsibility there.
But also remember that a CEO
might not have time for your status updates.
That's absolutely fine.
As long as someone on the stakeholder team
can reassure you that a single person's involvement
or lack thereof, isn't going to drag down your project.
Then talk about your plan, ask if there are any factors
impacting the final delivery.
An example here might be that.
"Hey, we have a national TV ad scheduled
for the air date to be the day
that the website launches."
That means if you don't meet your deadline
you're going to be causing some major issues
and your clients or stakeholders are gonna
be spending some more money on rescheduling those ads.
So this is really good information to have.
It's also good to know
if your stakeholders are planning to be away
for available stretches of time
because there's nothing worse
than trying to get work done or move to the next step
in your process and your partners
have gone completely silent, right?
So if you just ask about it, you'll know
and you can plan for these things.
A fun aside here you know,
if you talk about your plan in details
or if you drop words like estimate,
or work breakdown structure, deadline, budget
you're definitely going to quickly zero in
on who really under what solid project management is.
And the fact that that it's critical to any project success.
You want to keep the folks who get it close
and you're going to zero
in the ones who don't seem to get it
so that you can kind of educate them
on how their lack of involvement can create issues
with your timeline and with your budget.
You know, you're not going to do that
in the interview itself, but you're certainly
going to take note and follow up on it later.
Now, like I said before
these questions should just be a part of the interview.
You'll cover more project specifics,
of course in that interview, but I'm just offering
some project management related questions here.
So set some time aside with your stakeholders to
go get to know the process, the organizational politics,
and just general risks of the project overall.
I think doing that will not only convey
that your team has the experience to handle any type
of difficult personality situation or project,
but it also shows that you care about the project
and that you want it to run smoothly
not just for yourself, but for them too.
So I hope that you've on all of this information successful.
If you have any stakeholders interview questions,
practices experience,
or even stories that you'd like to share
drop them in the comments on YouTube.
I actually have one story before I go.
Okay, so I worked on the redesign
of a huge museum project when I worked at an agency.
So in this case my stakeholders were actually paying clients
and we started our contract working
with a team of five on our core stakeholder team.
But when we dug into the organization
it actually turned out that there were several departments
and even several external groups
and partners that had a meaningful stake in the website.
So we ended up with over 60 stakeholders.
It was a lot to say the least.
And because did those interviews, I found
that there were different ways that people
needed to be communicated to.
So I had to come up with separate streams
of communication and I even built a project and blog
and I planned bi-monthly stakeholder presentations
just to make sure that we were communicating
about the project with such a large group
of varied stakeholders.
It was totally time consuming
and just a little bit stressful for me
but so worth it because honestly we avoided a lot
of drama and a lot of wasted time just by doing that.
And I never would've thought to do that.
Had I not asked some simple questions
in my stakeholder interviews.
All right.
So that's the lesson there.
I hope this episode has been helpful.
Thanks again for watching.
Don't forget to drop a comment, give a like
and even subscribe to our channel
if you're enjoying the show.
Have a good rest of your day.
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