Are the Right Voices Shaping Your Project?
In mission-driven organizations, a project's success often relies heavily on the people it impacts. But too often, we jump directly into execution only to encounter roadblocks later because key voices were missing from the start. To avoid these frustrating delays, leaders need to ask a crucial question before the work truly begins: Have the right stakeholders shaped this work early enough?
Finding the right level of early engagement is a delicate balancing act that begins during project planning. Here is how you can ensure the right people are shaping your work without stalling your momentum.
The Danger of Engaging Too Late
Many project managers fail to engage enough stakeholders early on, leaving out the very groups necessary to move the project forward or the people who will eventually use the project's outcomes. The folks we fail to include during the planning phase often show up later in the project to delay progress, or they appear after completion as unsatisfied users. Engaging stakeholders early allows you to gather vital information on their needs and preferences, creating buy-in and a shared purpose from the start.
The Trap of Over-Engagement
On the flip side, we can also over-engage by asking every single stakeholder for feedback at every phase of a project, or by trying to build massive, unmanageable project teams. When we over-engage in this way, our projects can quickly become stuck or take too much time to complete.
The reality is that not all stakeholders need an equal role in or equal input to your project.
How to Engage Early and Effectively
If we want to avoid the extremes of under-engagement and over-engagement, we need a strategic approach to bringing stakeholders into the fold.
Clearly identify and document all stakeholders: Start by thinking broadly and inclusively about who will be impacted by the project itself or the project outcomes. This could include users, internal staff, other departments, partners, or vendors. Clearly documenting all project stakeholders ensures they stay front of mind in your planning and communication.
Assign specific project roles: Clarify exactly how each stakeholder should engage with the project. This allows key stakeholders to understand what is expected of them and enables you to guide their level of input. A stakeholder's role might actually be quite limited—perhaps just to a single project phase, a specific task, or a single feedback point.
Tailor your feedback points: Once you have assigned roles, you can create varying levels of engagement and different feedback points appropriate to those specific roles. By planning these roles and interactions, you can engage the right people at the right times and in the right ways.
Test ideas early: Do not wait until the end of a project to gather feedback on a final deliverable. Instead, shift your feedback gathering earlier in the project by testing beta deliverables, sharing early drafts, or simply running a basic idea by your key stakeholders. This approach allows you to "fail fast" and learn from small missteps before investing significant time, effort, and resources in a final deliverable.
When stakeholders are involved early, given clear roles, and provided opportunities to test concepts, they become active partners in the project, rather than mere participants. By asking if the right stakeholders have shaped the work early enough, you can set your projects up for smoother execution and much stronger outcomes.
Jami Yazdani is the founder of Yazdani Consulting & Facilitation, where we help mission-driven leaders turn project chaos into clarity and confident action. You lead the vision - we clear the path.