A Stakeholder Survival Guide: Managing Expectations on an Enterprise Project

Starting a web project can be an exciting (if daunting) prospect for stakeholders. Finally, we get a chance to fix that wonky news view! Have workflow! Edit our own content without breaking the page!

However, we are often our own worst enemy when we’re a project stakeholder. Our challenges are many:

• Seeing the big picture: Unless we can balance enthusiasm and commitment with give and take, the overall project is likely to be harmed by the multiple competing demands of stakeholders and the big change we were hoping to make gets lost in the weeds.
• Letting go of the old ways: Another challenge with mature businesses is that they frequently have established ways of doing things. Letting go of these ways is not simply a rational decision, there is also significant change management and often emotional attachment to the “old way.”
• Engaging without overwhelming the process: Rationally, we all know a project needs direction and that we need to make difficult decisions. However, when it’s us, we want to know as much as possible as the website affects our business unit: When will it launch? Why isn’t it launched already? Will I get my treasured feature?

In this presentation we’ll talk about how to build and keep momentum for a long-term, enterprise project; how to harness stakeholders’ passion to help drive the project forward; how to communicate difficult decisions and compromises without losing stakeholder engagement; and finally, how to launch with everyone on board and still excited. We’ll include real-world examples from websites ImageX and our clients built together.

In short, this presentation is about keeping an eye on the prize: making sure the goal of the project is well-understood by all, and that everyone who needs to has a chance to contribute in an effective way while helping people be the best versions of themselves on a project.

In this talk, we’ll cover:

• Processes for engaging large stakeholder groups
• How to communicate project objectives to the right audience with the right level of detail, at the right time, to keep everyone on board and focused
• Practical approaches for managing and overcoming resistance and fear of change
• The prep work you can do before a project starts to understand stakeholders’ needs and identify and risks to the project and its goals
• Any stumbles we made along the way and how we learned from them
• How to communicate progress to stakeholders without boxing yourself in to unrealistic launch dates or other commitments
• After launch, how to ensure everyone understands the value of what’s been collectively achieved, and what’s next