Interaction with the product team 3/3: Stakeholders. Who are they? What’s about them?

Stakeholders are those who are actively involved in a project or business, those whose interests can be influenced by the success or failure of the project, as well as those who, by virtue of their position or authority, can influence the project themselves. So, all these wonderful people must be identified, taken into account, and an approach must be developed to each. It is believed that the project manager must learn to manage the stakeholders by influencing them so that the project will flourish and not encounter overt or covert opposition.

Naturally, this is not easy. Taking into account the opinions of different parties, including those not expressed explicitly, reconciling diametrically opposed interests, not forgetting about the goals, in fact, of the project — it’s difficult. And often these people in the project and outside it occupy a much higher position and have more influence than the manager.

Internal and external, primary and secondary stakeholders

Who are the primary and secondary stakeholders? Primary ones make the closest circle of the project: founders, investors, team, partners, support group. These are the people who have a direct impact on the project.

Secondary stakeholders make the distant environment of the project, in which, nevertheless, there also can be very powerful forces: government officials, the media, the public represented by organizations and private activists. For example, a municipal official may never hear about your project and be indifferent to it, but one of his decisions will cut off your oxygen. And one successful publication in the mainstream media can create a wave of interest in your product.

Internal stakeholders are the team, top managers, board of directors, shareholders. At the same time, which again complicates the picture, their interests, upon closer examination, may not coincide. An employee wants more money, a manager wants to cut spending, and a shareholder wants more leverage. External stakeholders have a more colorful palette of interests and act for their own purposes, somehow influencing the fate of the project.

Why bother with considering and researching stakeholders?

• To avoid problems, near and far.
• To know who to stake on in the development of the project.
• To know where to protect yourself.
• To have a list of people to contact in the event of an attack from powerful opponents of the project.
• To have a talent pool from a loyal group.

Typical stakeholder groups

Owners, shareholders and investors

The main and obvious project stakeholder is a person who owns a share (“stake”) or a business owner. Shareholders buy a stake in the project and want the company to develop and bring them more and more income. These are our supporters.

Project management and staff

Top management is interested in the prosperity and growth of the company. Also, leaders like to take responsibility, to receive power and authority in order to realize their plans. But employees are often passive people, and the growth of the company promises them stress, change and overwork. With a good salary and honorable employer status, employees will be loyal and will not harm.

Suppliers of goods and services for the project

Suppliers of raw materials, spare parts, consumables also take care of us, because we bring them money. Likewise, lenders, including banks — it is important for them that the project is doing well.

Buyers

A product or project has a so-called “final” stakeholder — the buyer. In B2C, it’s just a person who likes a product or service. In B2B, these are dealers, partners, retail. In general, these are loyal allies with varying degrees of influence.

Authorities and public institutions

Power structures are also formally interested in the growth of the project. After all, business replenishes the budget, provides jobs and improves statistics. But with public organizations it is more difficult. Often they gather against something while the business is working for something. And there is an inevitable clash of interests. For example, a business wants to produce products, and eco-activists want to boycott associated emissions and garbage. Now is the time when the share of stakeholder activists is growing due to publicity and openness of information. Therefore, it is necessary to study the interests of this side and learn to interact with public institutions, even spontaneous ones.

What is the influence of stakeholders?

Understanding who can influence us in general, we need to determine the specifics, who, when, how, why, and for what purposes. There is a fairly simple tool for this.

Consider the support and influence matrix

A little about how the matrix works. It is a square divided into 4 quadrants. Reminds of the Eisenhower Matrix, doesn’t it? On the horizontal axis is the power of influence of the stakeholder (person or organization) on the project. On the right side of the coordinate axis, there are strong influencers. Left — the weak.

The vertical axis shows the attitude of a person or organization to the project: the higher, the greater the positive impact, and the lower, the more likely the person will want to harm us.

We arm ourselves with a list of all possible stakeholders and mark them on the matrix for clarity. In quadrant 1 (we count from right to left and from top to bottom), we will mark those who are strong, powerful and love our project. Ideally, this is a sponsor, investor. There are also people who make the project. Well, they should be, because success depends on them. If employees work without faith and motivation, then they crawl along the scale of support in the middle, or even become pests (lower quadrants).

The first quadrant is the life force quadrant of the project. This is where the stakeholders of the project are located, on whom everything good that can happen depends. You need to work with these people most of all, actively interact and strive not to lose them.

The second quadrant is also our allies, but, unfortunately, they do not have significant influence. These are line staff, fans, in general, those who have “behind their souls” only burning eyes and faith in the project, or just do their part well as a loyal employee. These people are our reserve for the first quadrant. They need to be promoted and given more influence, always thanks for their loyalty and support.

Third quadrant (bottom left) — ill-wishers. These are haters, skeptics, lazy and disloyal grassroots employees. They are against the project, but they cannot seriously interfere with it. They need to be monitored, but not given too much energy. And if possible, try to drag to your side, into the second quadrant. Work with employee loyalty, motivate them.

The last, fourth quadrant is the strong and influential enemies of the project. In theory, these are competitors and obvious ill-wishers, but different people and companies, even your employees, can get here.

With strong enemies, the manager can work through the strong players of our team from the first quadrant. To exhibit, so to speak, fighters of equal power. Let’s say a competitor wants to entice your developers. The manager can raise the salary through the investor or somehow motivate the team to stay. And so transfer them to the first quadrant, because they will become stronger and more loyal. In general, here you need to be on the lookout and understand the plans of the rivals.

For each stakeholder and each group

We prescribe the most complete information: name, position, opportunities, tasks, role in the project or outside it, how it can influence the project, and how you can influence it. The impact on the project can be assessed in points. Investor Fedorov: influence 10 out of 10 points — may not give money.

Junior designer Sokhnenko: influence 2 out of 10 points — can disrupt deadlines. ** 3. We transfer the data we have collected to the matrix.

Analyzing the results. ** In each case, the analysis will be individual, but there are basic questions that will help to get off the ground if, after drawing, there is emptiness in the head. Which of them is the easiest to lure to the “positive” side? Which of them is the most difficult to lure to the “positive” side? Who cannot be influenced in any way? Which of the “positive” ones can help in influencing the “negatives” and how?

Okay, I have a picture. What tools do I use to influence?

• modeling — slowly constructing the conditions you want in a team or business relationship;
• consultations — we go and talk with people about what they need and how we can influence;
• appeal to values and attitudes — appeal to the moral values of a person (“is this how it will be fair?”) or to your relationship (“we have been partners for a long time”);
• building alliances — create temporary and long-term alliances;
• exchange — “you-me, me-you”, win-win;
• legitimization — refer to established rules, norms, business traditions to justify the importance and fairness of your proposals;
• logical belief — build a system of arguments with evidence and conclusions.

Problem

The work of influencing stakeholders never ends and the matrix is updated all the time. You have successfully influenced someone, someone has presented you with an unpleasant surprise. New characters appear in the matrix, and the old ones “ride” back and forth along the coordinate system.

Therefore, it cannot be ignored and it is necessary to periodically update it in order to keep abreast.

In conclusion

Company stakeholders are people just like everyone else, with their own plans, goals, desires and prejudices. By identifying people who are important and not very important, but who are involved in your business, you can more clearly see social connections, hidden dangers and prospects. Having prescribed for themself this often complex ecosystem, the project manager will receive a map of future actions to influence the “friends” and “enemies” of the project. The latter, by the way, may be very few, because even critics and competitors often benefit the project.

It remains to wish you the best of luck in completing the Influence Matrix and fruitful relationships with your stakeholders.

If you haven’t subscribed to my telegram channel yet, now is the time to do so by clicking on the Product Monkey link. You can find a lot of interesting things there.(https://t.me/productmonkey). Every day I make posts about the most important things in product management.
If you want to learn more about team interaction, here is my course on Udemy. I created my own course on this topic, based on the fact that I believe that the product is built, including on relationships in the team.(https://www.udemy.com/course/interaction-with-the-product-team)