Stakeholder Personas: Part 1 – Action Oriented

Stakeholder management is a major aspect of project management.  The Project Management Institute identifies it as one of the ten major knowledge areas of project management and has numerous tools and best practices for managing stakeholders.  But let’s face it.  You don’t manage the stakeholders.  In fact, it is much more likely that they are managing you.  So what you manage are your interactions with the stakeholders.

   

Now “interactions” implies that there are at least two individuals involved, you and the stakeholder.  In this series, I want to address the best practices for interacting with stakeholders based upon how they normally interact.  This is based upon what they consider to be compelling issues and their primary area of concern.  I have identified five personas that represent the types of stakeholders I have encountered over the years.  These are the action-oriented stakeholder, the expert-oriented stakeholder, the process-oriented stakeholder, the data-orientedstakeholder and finally the uninterested stakeholder.  In this post I will talk about interacting with the action-oriented stakeholder.

The Stakeholder

The action-oriented stakeholder likes to see things happening.  They are very interested in making forward progress so their first concern is always the schedule.  They are addicted to adrenaline.  They love to be at the center of the action and are energized by the frenzy of activity.  Problems don’t disappoint them, they excite them because it is an opportunity to dive into a situation and make something happen.  When there isn’t obvious action on a project, they assume nothing is happening.   Typically, these individuals enjoy the spotlight and attention that goes with being in the middle of a crisis and working to resolve it.   The fact that a too quick reaction or over-reaction to a problem can make the problem even worse does not concern them.  These individuals can make great change agents or dynamic leaders in times of crisis.  But they can also exhaust an organization or team over time by creating unnecessary crises.

Interaction Style

The two key elements of any interaction with this stakeholder is immediacy and the next steps.  They want to know what is happening.  Always lead with the schedule when giving them a status update.  If there is a problem somewhere on your project, they want to know as soon as possible and they want to know what you are doing.  They don’t need a complete plan, but they want to know you are working on the problem.  Their typical questions will be:

• “What is happening now?”
• “What are you going to do next?”
• “How can I help?”

Normally, they prefer frequent short crisp communications rather than in-depth analysis.  They would rather get a quick text or phone call giving them the current status than get a well rehearsed formal project presentation or detailed report providing background and options.   

They also are ready to make quick decisions.  Tell them what you want or need and expect an immediate response.  In fact, a way to encourage them to make a decision is to let them know that action on a project has stopped until the decision is made.

Key Messages

When discussing your project always have a schedule status.  Explain what has been accomplished and what is underway.  When presenting a project problem with this stakeholder, you don’t need to have all the answers.  They would rather interact many times through a series of short-term action plans, than to have one major interaction with a master plan that covers the entire project and options.  In particular, they want to know what you are doing and what they can do.  Expect them to make quick decisions and to offer help.  I recommend that you interact with frequent concise status updates of what is happening.  Remember, if they are not aware of any action, they assume nothing is happening. 

Good News and Bad News

For these stakeholders, both forward progress and crisis problems are good news.  A project that is in the midst of a long analysis or that is waiting for deliveries from suppliers or even worse, waiting on an approval from someone else before it can continue, is bad news.  A great way to communicate and interact with them is through a schedule chart that has at least one or two events or milestones every week.  Then it is easy to show progress and action.  They don’t consider unexpected events or deviations from plan to be bad news, but rather they are “opportunities.”  In fact, to them, a bad news message is when they didn’t find out about a problem as soon as it occurred.

Final Thoughts

I appreciate these stakeholders when running innovation, organizational change or crisis projects.  They are ready and willing to make decisions and keep things moving forward whenever the inevitable changes or roadblocks are identified.  However, they can be disruptive at times.  I was running a project a few years ago and one of the stakeholders was of this type.  He would often show up at project meetings and start giving directions to the project team, totally disrupting the plan and current activities.  In order to manage our project interactions, I eventually had to tell him he was not allowed to attend team meetings (an interesting discussion given that he was my boss’s boss).  What we agreed to do was for me to meet with him several times a week to provide status and let him know how he can help us move the project along.