How do you engage with key stakeholders and influencers?

I agree with everything explaing. I would add that in industries like construction, there are many stakeholder that act as consultant and you have to include them but you need to know who the final decision maker is in each area. Also, just ask you clien who should be included as a stakeholder on their side and what level and type of communication are they expecting.

In my experience in Real Estate industry the client is the stakeholder and they dictates the budget timeframe and more. To have a better output in ensuring all are in place when a project is activated a great tools to manage it to having a clear tools, matrix to define the priority in delivering the project.

You should also consider expanding the scope of your stakeholder matrix map to Decision Makers, Execution Team Members, and Stakeholder hurdles. For example, a Director makes the final strategic decision but their decision is influenced by how easy the work is to accomplish (Execution) and stakeholders with low adoption or enthusiasm about an upcoming project. This will feed into your engagement strategy to ease execution concerns and turn detractors into champions.

Unfortunately making a strategic shift in direction often requires significant changes in personnel. Understanding the individuals impacted and their loyalty to the organization is the first consideration. Identifying those who have influence with the rank and file as well as making considerations to those influencers will be key in rolling out the philosophy for the changes and then cheerleading the benefits to he rank and file.

In the Scrum methodology, one of the few prescribed meetings is the Sprint Review, where stakeholders are invited to see the results of the Sprint, and provide feedback. I've actually found this to be a critical meeting. Not only do you get stakeholders more involved in your product, but you can get really valuable feedback that drives future Sprints. It also makes the stakeholders feel heard and can buy you a lot of goodwill. Sprint Reviews are prescribed at the end of every Sprint in the Scrum methodology.

In my experience this is the most important part of a project. So many issues can be prevented when a thorough communication plan is utilized. More often than not delays in a project or rework are a direct result of missing communication.

In my experience planning on how to communicate with stakeholder is a crucial point. One must know who are the contact person in the organization, define the decision maker and ensure that this are banded by a consolidate agreement, documentation agreed form of tracker, how many times the team will be attending a meetings and etc. Allowing an open communicate will ease the workflow and can resolve a better solution in delivering a project as mandated by schedule and budget.

I ask my self these three questions when planning engagement: 1. What is important to the stakeholder? One of the easiest ways to think through this is understanding if they are motivated intrinsically or extrinsically. Intrinsic motivator is "my name is tied to this project and it can't fail", extrinsic motivator "if this project goes well I get a big bonus." 2. Find out what their concerns are and mark them down Loss aversion is twice a powerful as a perceived benefit. If you can quickly empathize and mitigation strategies, it will build stakeholder confidence. 3. How do I get them to return my calls? Is it urgency, overcommunication, or establishing a positive relationship?

Building trust is essential for ensuring continuous engagement with stakeholders throughout any project. This involves practicing respect, honesty, transparency, and responsiveness in all interactions. To foster trust, actively listen and acknowledge contributions and achievements. Address concerns and expectations professionally and promptly. Involve them in decision-making and problem-solving and show genuine appreciation. It is essential to create and promote greater sense of ownership despite the different functions. Trust forms the bedrock for honouring roles and responsibilities, and it facilitates efficient conflict management. Building trust is a strategic asset, driving successful outcomes and effective collaboration.

In games and entertainment industries it is quite essential to have a good working rapport and the trust of the people you work with. Otherwise it's difficult to get anything done. And don't forget that trust can only be earned by truth, diligence and following through on what you say. Lifting people up with a little spontaneous help and kindness doesn't hurt either.

Being transparent and open in communicating issue and solution with stakeholder will allow all parties involve in the project to be constructive in giving their feedback and criticism. Such factor will have a positive feedback in achieving the end of goal of the products, specially in Real Estate industry where a large amount money is at stake so fostering a rapport of honesty, transparency and cooperation in the organization is a sure factor in ensuring a successful output.

I would add that when conflict arises, it is very important to stop communicating by text (emails). The best way to resolve conflict is an in-person meeting, next would be an online meeting with the video enable, and third a phone call. The more personal the interaction feels, the better people are at lowering their guards and be open to other perspectives and potential solutions.

In my experience creating a “big tent” of diverse stakeholders, I've found that anticipating conflict and pushback that could potentially arise and having a concise but persuasive retort is extremely helpful. When conflicts come up, it is also helpful to stay on message and pull stakeholders back to a narrative that has common ground. Differences and disagreements are inevitable, but don't let them pull everyone off point.

In my years of experience from being a consultant and moving into the real estate market allows me to get an insight on how to mitigate risk, this is by identifying in an early stage the issue and hindrances that May possibility arise during the process of the building the project, to manage such Risk each section of deliverables must be put into a tracker and use the simplistic form of pro and con, if and what, then build a solution matrix and allows its to expand as the project moving on. It will be insightful tools to learn and can use a reference as an open dialogue with stakeholder for them to be aware that such cases must be address early on or on later stage of the project.

Growing your soft skills around stakeholder engagement are all about gaining a growth mindset. I don't agree with surveys, but investing in 1:1s where you create a safe space for direct and honest communication allows for you to get the gift of feedback. Reading rooms, understanding that politics exist in every environment, and knowing how your words can be perceived are all areas of how you adapt and improve over time. Know that everyone is different and the same tactics won't work. You can't be robotic about how you engage stakeholders either, because it comes off as unauthentic, which breaks trust. Trust is so key to every element of stakeholder engagement.

I think it's very important using a easy tool to share informations about the project, tasks, milestones, deadlines and all about the project. You could use for example, Kanban to organize the tasks, dashboards in the Grafana to follow the status and results, Slack to facilitate the communication and alerts to your team.

Stakeholders for a project can be anyone, from most important being the client to other stakeholders like vendors, internal stakeholders & so on. Projects are bounded by time & scope, it is important to remember what is Not a part of the scope more than what is a part of the scope. Client side: 1) It is important to be firm & polite while refusing to work out of scope 2)For discussions on activities which are out of the deliverables scope, it is important to record change management in addition to the existing contract after mutual agreement with external stakeholders Vendor/supplier side: 1)Important to establish rapport for better strategic sourcing but also to know the boundaries of scope.