Great, well welcome to our Impactful Projects

and Planning microtraining series.

I'm Jami Yazdani.

In today's session, we'll talk about including,

engaging, and managing your project's stakeholders.

So, who are we talking about when we say project

stakeholders?

When you think about a project's stakeholders,

we often think first about decision-makers.

This could be your organizational leadership,

the project sponsor or funder, or the project's

initiators.

We also usually think about the users or clients.

So whoever is going to be using whatever it

is that our project is creating.

We may also think about our colleagues, whether

it's other staff that will be involved with

the project or project partners like vendors,

volunteers, or other organizations that we

may rely on during the project or once our

outcomes are implemented.

We may even think about our project team,

the primary group of folks who will be accomplishing

the project's tasks.

Put simply, our project stakeholders are those

who will be involved in or impacted by our

project.

So those involved in implementing the project

or the project's deliverables, and those who

will be impacted by the project itself or

the project's outcomes.

So how do we successfully manage our project

stakeholders?

One primary way is through our project communications,

which we're going to talk about in our next

microtraining scheduled for July 20.

Beyond communication, though, I've got three

tips I want to share today for including,

engaging, and managing your project stakeholders.

First, I strongly encourage you to think broadly

and inclusively about who is a project stakeholder.

When considering our project stakeholders,

there is a tendency to narrow that list of

who is involved and impacted down to the barest

minimum, often to the handful of folks who

are the most helpful or will move the project

along quickly.

Or to the few folks we can't ignore - the

folks who will be the loudest or who carry

a lot of authority or political weight.

While I understand this tendency, especially

in resource-limited mission-driven organizations,

I find that it's an approach that is never

as useful as we think it will be.

The folks we don't include now often show

up later in our project, delaying or detracting

us, or they appear after the project is completed

as folks who are unsatisfied with our project's

outcomes.

A great many projects in mission-driven organizations

are change management projects - we are introducing

some new program to our core users or community

or a new tool or way of working to our staff

or volunteers.

Our projects are creating change.

And for our outcomes to be impactful, we need

to create buy-in across a broad spectrum of

stakeholders, so thinking broadly and inclusively

is going to be critical to the success of

our project.

And even if our project isn't creating great

change, it still likely requires the support

of a larger group of folks than our project

team.

Our project team may be a small handful of

people who will take on the vast majority

of the tasks.

But there's often a point at which our project

needs support from outside of our team, from

admins or finance staff from vendors or the

IT or marketing teams.

These folks are stakeholders too, and their

lack of support or a delay in completing their

only task can delay our entire project.

Whom we consider a project stakeholder and

include at some level in our project impacts

our project decisions and outcomes.

So we want to think broadly and inclusively

about who is a stakeholder.

Our goal with broadly and inclusively considering

who is a stakeholder is so that we can document

our stakeholders.

In practice, our stakeholders may be a group

or an individual.

So a stakeholder might be Jose who manages

our volunteers, or it might be our team of

volunteer coordinators.

Regardless, we should be documenting our project

stakeholders.

Let's consider an initial list of project

stakeholders for a project to create a new

program.

So this program is going to be grant-funded.

So we identify our funder and organizational

leadership as stakeholders.

Both groups have set requirements for the

program and will need updates on our progress.

We've also identified the core users of our

program and our project team.

Now a broader more inclusive list would also

include the staff who will be implementing

the program and the volunteers who will support

it.

Maybe there's a technology tool the program

will use and our IT team is a stakeholder.

And we will be making some purchases using

those grant funds, so our finance staff also

need to be involved.

And at a later part of the project, when we

want to market our new program, we will likely

need to include the marketing team.

Again, who will be involved or impacted by

our project?

Clearly identify and document those people

so that they stay front of mind in project

planning and communication.

Now even though I'm encouraging you to identify

and document all project stakeholders, this

doesn't mean that you need to expand your

project team or your project meetings to include

every individual or someone from every group,

you don't need to find a conference room to

fit 20 or 30 or 40 people.

Not all stakeholders need an equal role in

or equal input to the project.

But we do want to make sure we are considering

all stakeholders so that our project is well

planned and more successful.

So after we've identified our stakeholders,

we assign them roles.

Project roles are how we ensure we are engaging

the right people at the right time.

Again, not every stakeholder needs to play

an equal role in the project or have equal

input.

A stakeholder's role may be quite limited

or limited to a single phase, task, or feedback

point.

The roles a stakeholder's assigned are going

to vary depending on the project.

But I find it useful to think about what they

need to do or know.

Do they need to make decisions or complete

tasks?

Do they need to get progress updates or reports?

Or will they provide the project team with

information or feedback?

Will they need to test what the project creates?

Or will they be implementing or using it once

it's created?

What does the stakeholder need to do, during

or after the project?

Or what did they know or need to know to make

the project and the project's outcomes successful?

Again, these roles can be minor or limited

to one point or moment in the project.

In impactful projects, the project manager

acts as an influencer.

They understand who the right people are and

when and how to use them.

They find out who has the necessary knowledge,

skills, and authority to accomplish project

tasks.

But they also know who needs to be swayed

to move the project along and who may pose

problems if not managed or kept informed.

Great project managers don't just create achievable

plans and monitor progress.

They engage with the project stakeholders

to create buy-in and gather the support necessary

to get things done.

They engage the right people at the right

time in the right ways, which sometimes means

having difficult conversations, gathering

and acting on feedback, and anticipating challenges.

Great project managers are influencers, moving

people and their projects forward.

So those are a few tips on managing project

stakeholders.

By broadly and inclusively identifying our

stakeholders, documenting them so that they

are not forgotten, and assigning them even

minor roles, we can lead more successful projects.

Project stakeholders are one of my five key

elements of impactful project management.

Along with scope, outcomes or deliverables,

schedule, and communications, a focus on stakeholders

can greatly impact your project success, especially

for mission-driven organizations.

Together, these five elements can help us

plan our projects, create a more collaborative

project environment, and strategically deliver

successful project outcomes.

To learn more about leading impactful projects,

you can download our five key elements worksheet.

This free download of our simple worksheet

is a great start to project planning and is

available at yazdaniconsulting.com/resources.

If you need more support leading projects

and teams, visit our project solutions page

at yazdaniconsulting.com/projects to learn

about what we can offer.

Great, so I'm happy to take any questions

you have about project stakeholders.

Please do add them in the comments.

I'm going to give folks a few moments to type

out their questions.

If I'm not able to answer your question live,

I'm happy to respond later in the comments.

You can find all of the ways to contact me

at yazdaniconsulting.com/contact.

There you can schedule a time to talk with

me about your project stakeholders.

Okay, so a question I often get is how much

engagement is too much or too little.

So I said today that a stakeholder's role

can be quite minor.

But what that looks like will depend on the

project and your organization.

Many folks aren't engaging enough with all

of their stakeholders, leaving out groups

that are necessary to move the project forward

or who are going to be using the project outcomes.

I often hear from nonprofit folks that they

didn't engage enough with other staff or volunteers

in planning their projects, only to find that

those folks needed to complete a task, but

their availability conflicts with the project

schedule, or they find that a project process

doesn't work well with a stakeholder process.

But I also hear from folks on the other end

of the spectrum, their projects can't move

forward because their project teams are too

large.

Every stakeholder is asked for feedback at

every phase of the project and their projects

are stuck or take way too long.

So there really is a balance that needs to

be achieved.

We're going to talk more about communications

next time, but I think stakeholder engagement

planning and communication planning really

go hand in hand.

So in terms of engagement, instead of planning

one monthly project meeting that includes

everyone impacted by the project, create different

feedback points, and varying levels of engagement

or progress updates appropriate to the different

roles and types of stakeholders.

This may seem like a lot more work, especially

for the project manager.

But I think that upfront planning for engagement

saves time and energy once the project is

underway.

Okay, so feel free to comment or reach out

and message me with any additional questions.

And thank you for participating in our Impactful

Projects and Planning microtraining series.

Visit yazdaniconsulting.com/ipp to view all

of the sessions in the series and learn about

upcoming microtrainings.

Thank you.