Highlight Host: Broadcasting from Fairfax, Virginia. You are now listening to the highlight cast.
Ashley Nichols: Hello and welcome back to HighlightCast I’m Ashley Nichols, Vice President of Corporate Strategy and Development here at Highlight, and today I’m joined by Mandy Graham, who’s our director for National Security Solutions. Hi, Mandy. Hello. A few months ago Mandy co-led a session at the Udacity conference on change management and continuous delivery in government environments.
And a big takeaway from that talk was around stakeholder management an often underestimated backbone of effective change. So we wanted to bring back some of that conversation here to the podcast and dive a little deeper. So Mandy, for those who weren’t able to attend the [00:01:00] session, how would you define stakeholder management?
Mandy Graham: Yeah, so stakeholder management is really, it’s the process by which your team or organization is basically organizing, monitoring, or improving your relationships with your stakeholders. And then stakeholder management is typically at the heart of really any significant change initiative, at least in my experience.
So if you don’t have that stakeholder alignment by understanding your stakeholders interests and their incentives. Maybe even their resistance. You’re really setting up yourself and your team for maybe future roadblocks that could happen on your project or your program. It’s about trust building and ensuring that everyone feels like their voice is heard and that their priorities are being acknowledged.
I typically see too, especially in the federal space, like you’re dealing with. A bunch of different types of stakeholders. So it’s your program managers, it’s your contracting officers, the mission owners and [00:02:00] all of those people are gonna have a different definition of what success is. So part of the challenge, and I guess the opportunity too, is like getting all of those folks on the same page with, shared understanding, clear communication and stakeholder management, like really gives you all of that.
Ashley Nichols: Nice. So how do you ensure the right message resonates with stakeholders? Especially when it comes to change?
Mandy Graham: Yeah, I think I, I mentioned this at the posity chat, but I truly like to think of messaging, like product testing. And it’s really how you adapt based on the feedback that you’re getting with the messaging that you’re putting out.
For instance if leadership isn’t responding to something like a risk report or something that you are, you’re sending out to your stakeholders, it might mean that the message just isn’t resonating with them. So you can try shifting mediums moving from maybe a really dense report or like technical report to more visual charts or a dashboard or [00:03:00] something, a little bit more dynamic and just framing that same message or same content. In a different way and just, or maybe it’s even aligning it to the mission priorities that your stakeholders focused on so that they can make that one-to-one comparison and you can just keep adjusting until it lands.
Similar to product testing. We also had a case where. Leadership wasn’t engaging with like status reports. So we ended up switching to visual dashboards and tied those directly to the things that they were reporting on to their boss. The engagement picked up immediately.
Yeah. And sometimes it’s not even about the content of the message, it’s the way that you’re delivering it to the stakeholder. Nice.
Ashley Nichols: So I remember also that you talked about resistance and how it’s natural, but manageable. What’s your approach to navigating that? Yeah, a hundred percent. I do think that it is natural and like human nature for people to, to resist change.
Mandy Graham: So I think one of the biggest things is it’s hard to confront that [00:04:00] and come against that resistance and not feel discouraged or disheartened with that. Because a lot of times you’re putting. A lot of time and effort and energy into the thing that is exciting to you, whether that is your project or your program, and then you come up against this roadblock or this resistance from someone, and you can immediately shy away from it because you get discouraged.
But it’s a nice way to just remind yourself that this is normal. This is how people are going to react to things when they’re coming against something that’s new to them or resisting that change. It’s key to understand. Why people are resisting. Sure. What is the why behind the change or the resistance to change?
Is it that they just have a lack of information around the topic? Are there incentives, misaligned with your incentives? Once you identify what that root cause is, then it really gives you the opportunity to address it directly, whether that’s through. Education opportunities, training opportunities showcasing early [00:05:00] wins among your team.
Demonstrating alignment like again with their goals, the things that are important to them, the things that their boss’s boss may care about. It really helps you. Build that empathy. And recognizing that change is hard and it’s uncomfortable often. So if you can acknowledge that, and then meet your stakeholders where they are, I think it just becomes a lot more easy to get them on board with the thing that you’re trying to do.
Ashley Nichols: Yeah. So let’s back up a little bit and talk. You had outlined four main pillars of effective stakeholder management during your talk. Can you walk us through those?
Mandy Graham: Yes. So if I’m recalling correctly, so we had four, four pillars, and the first pillar is stakeholder identification, but that one pillar is broken into two subsets.
So it’s one A, one B. So you’re doing your stakeholder identification, which is pinning down all of your stakeholders, your internal stakeholders, your external stakeholders. Then you prioritize that list of stakeholders. That’s your one A, and then your [00:06:00] one B is building a stakeholder map. And this is where you truly understand, you drill into what folks care about and like what the relationships are between your different stakeholders.
You understand the landscape of which like you’re playing in. And then once you get all of that underway, which all is all under that first pillar of stakeholder identification. That dovetails really nicely into pillar two, which is setting up that engagement plan that you’re going to be using with your stakeholders.
And this is again, tailored to their interests, their incentives, their mindsets, their needs that you identified in that stakeholder map that you built. And then you’re also specifying in that engagement plan what the communication frequency and format is going to be moving forward, the way that you’re going to interact with those folks.
And then pillars four, three, and four. Are continuous in interaction. So again, building those relationships based on the feedback that you’re getting from your stakeholders. And then reporting back is the fourth pillar. So always closing the loop and making sure that [00:07:00] their input is translated, how showcasing how their input is translated into action within your program or your project.
And that just again, helps build that trust and accountability. Because the one thing that stakeholder management, the goal of it is to get that interaction. Like you want your stakeholder to come and talk to you and share their input and their insights. So once they’re doing that, like you’ve won, like that’s exactly what you wanted to happen through this engagement.
So you wanna reward that and ensure that they’re getting what they need out of that conversation. So if you’re showcasing back to them and reporting back to them, closing that loop. Here’s all the information that you gave us and all the input that you gave us and how it translated into our project either benefited or it didn’t work.
We pivoted and here’s why. But you’re always reporting back to them so they understand why and how the things that they are interested in or reported to you or directly influencing the program.
Ashley Nichols: Yeah. I think that dovetails nicely into, how stakeholder management [00:08:00] con connects to continuous delivery and how that works in practice?
Mandy Graham: Yeah, definitely. So continuous delivery, it’s like one of those things that’s been a hot topic for a long time and it really does thrive on alignment and the best way to get alignment is through stakeholder engagement. So I think that’s the way that they kinda go really hand in hand together if your stakeholders don’t buy into the process.
Or understand the why behind why you’re doing rapid changes, why you’re doing incremental deployments, why you’re doing all of these like agile practices or whatever else that you’re bringing to the team that may be new or novel or something needed to do. Those continuous delivery activities if they don’t understand that it may allow them to, again, bring that adverse. Part of it into the conversation. And that slows your progress because now you’re having to backtrack and re-explain the why or come back to the table and baseline again. So if you’re just keeping everyone on the same page from the beginning making sure that [00:09:00] everyone is in the loop and they’re informed and they’re part of the decision making process.
Then they truly just become advocates instead of, potential roadblocks. And it really just completely changes the trajectory of the way that you’re able to move forward with whatever that thing is that you’re trying to do.
Ashley Nichols: Yeah. Can you talk a little bit about how you prioritize the stakeholders when there are so many competing interest interests?
Mandy Graham: Yeah. So when I was mentioning before that pillar one has the two subsets of one A, one B. Part of that is understanding what, how to prioritize tho those stakeholders with regard to who you wanna focus on and in what areas you need to focus on. So not all stakeholders are created equal, and that’s okay.
But if you’re prioritizing based on influence and interest, we typically do this on a two by two matrix. So in intra influence or impact, you can do whatever one you want against their interest in your program or your [00:10:00] project. You can understand where they fall and how you should be engaging with them.
So people who may have direct decision making power or can seriously impact the project timelines, like they’re gonna get more frequent engagement. Then from there it’s about managing expectations with the broader group or the wider group so that nobody feels left out and they’re still informed and engaged.
But it’s really the decision makers that are getting the information that they need to move things forward with regard to the program or the project. So using that two by two matrix allows you to understand where folks fall in those quadrants and then manage them appropriately for where they land in that.
So again, that’s the part of your identification process and it’s step one A, which would be to prioritize that long list of stakeholders.
Ashley Nichols: So Mandy, you mentioned developing a tool, that quad chart you were talking about for the one A, one B, et cetera process. Where can folks find something like that?
Mandy Graham: Yeah, so when we were at the Prodacity conference, we [00:11:00] built out a one pager that was basically a template that you can use within your team that work walks you through that entire process. So it gives you the definition of stakeholder management. Then it shows you what you should do as far as building your cohesive list of stakeholders, how to prioritize those stakeholders on the two by two matrix, and then how to do your stakeholder map that we chatted about.
So it, it’s an all inclusive one pager that walks you through that entire workshop that you can share with your team. And it’s in template format. So you can either fill it out on the sheet itself or print out different copies or share a digital version with your team. And we’re gonna link that below the podcast episode so that you can use it within your own context.
Great holders.
Ashley Nichols: Absolutely. And so what role does data play in stakeholder management?
Mandy Graham: Oh man. It’s a big tool. Data separate podcast. Yes. Podcast and data. But it’s everything. It’s the bridge between your opinion and fact. So when you bring data to these conversations, whether it’s [00:12:00] improvement metrics or deployment frequency cost savings, whatever it is that you’re bringing, that, that really.
Is the data behind the thing that you’re doing, it grounds the conversation. It grounds the discussion because people can debate perspective. But it’s really hard to then argue with numbers. So if you’re showcasing that data in a dashboard or in charts or you’re like mathematically showing like how something is happening, one, it helps stakeholders feel connected to the impact, but it also builds their confidence in the thing.
Because they’re seeing. In actuality what’s happening. And it’s not just theory anymore. Like here’s, this is the data, this is the nu, these are the numbers, and then they’re able to take that very tangible thing and share that out with their potential stakeholders. Yeah. So it just builds this again, like connected to the impact and like feeling this confidence with it when you bring data into the fold.
Sometimes it’s hard to build data with a program or a project that’s brand new. A lot of it is theory. So it’s really [00:13:00] tricky to try to find those areas that you can drill into and show this like actual tangible data that’s really impactful with your stakeholders.
Ashley Nichols: Nice. And as we wrap up, lastly, what’s one common mistake you see when it comes to stakeholder management?
Mandy Graham: Yeah, I think the biggest mistake is probably assumption. Assuming that your stakeholders understand the mission priorities, that assuming that they’re fully informed or assuming that they’re aligned. It’s why I’m usually so committed to like that. Again, continuous interact in interaction reporting back and making sure that cycle is like always happening because those assumptions really do create blind spots.
And then those blind spots derail your progress. So making sure you have the clear proactive communication and how you bridge that gap is. Truly through making sure that you’re not making assumptions and you’re informing folks at the highest level of what’s [00:14:00] happening. A second, I was actually looking at a slide deck the other day that I had built previously that just reminded me of a quote that they had in that slide deck.
And it’s, it basically an answer to that question. So this is, this was a quote, lemme pull up the slides from the former US Secretary of Defense and. He says, when you are engaged at the tactical level, you grasp your own reality. So clearly that it’s tempting to assume that everyone above you sees it in the same light that you do.
Yeah. And that’s just wrong. So when you are the senior commander and a deployed force, time spent sharing your appreciation of the situation on the ground with your seniors. Is like time spent on recon, it’s s was. Yeah. So I just think that, that quote is just so relevant there. ’cause I truly think like the downfall is really those assumptions.
And I think that when you’re making sure that everyone is on the same level and playing field like you’re. That time is never [00:15:00] wasted. Like doing that drill and like making sure that folks understand the space that you’re living in all the time because you think that everyone sees the world that way and that’s probably not the case.
Ashley Nichols: That also might be a good life lesson, but yeah, very true. Yeah. Alright, Mandy, thank you for lessons in stakeholder management and life. Thanks for walking us through this, and I think you’ve laid out a nice blueprint for how to do the stakeholder management the right way in the federal space.
Awesome. And thank you all for listening to the highlight cast. To keep up to date with highlights news and activities, follow us on our LinkedIn or visit our website@highlighttech.com and tune in for our next episode. Thanks. See you soon.
Mandy Graham: Awesome, thank you.
Highlight Host: The views and opinions expressed in this episode are those of the hosts and do not necessarily reflect, highlight technologies and or any agency of the US government.
Find the Stakeholder Management Worksheet here: StakeholderManagementWorksheet
