Identifying Key Stakeholders For Innovation Strategy

You did some planning around building a feature but didn’t include a set of key business stakeholders. Now, alarms have gone off and questions are being raised about why they weren’t included. More importantly, they are now vetoing your work. Ouch. This happens more often than you think. The way to deal with this is by being proactive and really mapping out the stakeholder tree for key features you are building. What you want to do is get alignment on the When / Who / Why for each major feature you are building. Aligning the "Who" Who are the different teams involved in this Feature? Who are the stakeholders who need to say “Yes”? Who are the stakeholders that have to be kept informed so they don’t veto your work? Aligning the "When" When do you involve stakeholders? How should you involve them? What informal channels should be used to keep stakeholders aligned? Aligning the "Why" (MOST IMPORTANT) What are their motivations? What are their goals? How can you align your strategy with what stakeholders want? There’s no shortcut to this, half of product management is stakeholder management. If you don’t put the time in to think through these questions, you will get your work vetoed.

A simple alignment exercise One challenge I see slowing down innovation in audit and accounting firms is a lack of alignment across the decision makers. This is sometimes, but not always, a product of the Partnership model and the desire for the views and votes of all Partners to count equally. While one long-term, permanent solution to this problem is moving to a corporate structure (as BDO US recently accounted), progress can be made to better align the Partner group on innovation decisions through a simple and quick stakeholders exercise. I have run this multiple times with Partner groups and always found it a valuable exercise. Consider running it at your next partner meeting! What you will need: 1. Cubes, marbles, or something comparable. You need 4 of these per person involved in the exercise. 2. Shoe boxes, bags (not transparent), or something comparable. You need 4 in total. Write on the 4 boxes “Clients”, “Our team”, “Partners”, and “Regulators”. How to run the exercise: 1. Explain to the group there are 4 defined stakeholders who you feel should be considered in your innovation decision making process (the 4 listed above and now written on the boxes). The exercise is to collectively prioritize those stakeholders to help innovation decision making. 2. Allocate 4 cubes to each person participating in the exercise. 3. Place the 4 boxes next to each other on a table at the side of the room. 4. Each participant must then allocate their cubes to the boxes, based on how important they feel that stakeholder is to the firm’s innovation efforts. 5. Once everyone has done this (I suggest over a coffee break) open the boxes at the front of the room and tally the cubes. 6. Discuss the results as a group and how they should impact your future decision making. 7. When decision making time comes around, reference back to this exercise when making innovation decisions. Instead of having to hear every Partner’s opinion, all Partners can now adopt this collective mindset and make decisions according. Notes for the exercise: 1. Participants can either allocate all 4 of their cubes to 1 box if they feel only 1 stakeholder should be considered, or can allocate 1 cube to each box if they feel all 4 are equally important. Or any other combination in between. 2. The exercise is designed so it can be anonymous until the debrief phase. During the debrief, participants often share how they allocated the cubes and their rationale. This is not an essential part of the exercise, but it can be very insightful hearing how everyone approached the process of allocating their cubes. 3. Consider the stakeholders before the exercise - the 4 discussed here are based on regulated services innovation such as audit. If you run this exercise let me know how it goes!

Struggling with stakeholder buy-in? I have a template that can help. The Power-Interest matrix maps key stakeholders into 4 personas: 🔴 The ARCHITECTS (high power, high interest) These are people with a lot of power who are very involved in research (e.g., product managers, design leaders) 🟢 The OBSERVERS (high power, low interest) Someone with a lot of power, but an arms-length distance from your work (e.g., Head of Product., C-suite) 🟡 The EXPLORERS (low power, high interest) They’re super interested in your work, but don’t have a lot of influence in the org (fellow UXRs, designers) 🔵 The CASUAL OBSERVERS (low power, low interest) Someone without a lot of influence or interest in research (think other team members like sales, marketing) To make getting buy-in easier, you need to understand each stakeholder persona, and talk to them accordingly. ARCHITECTS need most attention. They need close management with regular updates + involvement. OBSERVERS only care about business outcomes. They prefer concise reports & summaries that are action-oriented, without jargon. For CASUAL OBSERVERS, you can loop them in on big breakthroughs + findings that matter to their work. EXPLORERS are fans of research. Keep them informed through shared repositories & weekly syncs. For a detailed analysis of each stakeholder and how to engage with them better, go here: https://bit.ly/4b0wGSC If you want to skip the reading, just use my FREE Stakeholder Persona Mapping Figjam template: https://bit.ly/4b4JN5A Which type of stakeholders have you struggled with the most? Please share wisdom in the comments! 👇 #uxresearch #stakeholdermanagement

🤝 𝗕𝗔 𝗖𝗮𝘀𝗲 𝗦𝘁𝘂𝗱𝘆 𝗣𝗮𝗿𝘁 𝟰: 𝗦𝘁𝗮𝗸𝗲𝗵𝗼𝗹𝗱𝗲𝗿 𝗔𝗻𝗮𝗹𝘆𝘀𝗶𝘀 In my last post, I shared the proposed solution and future state for my business case. This time, I focused on identifying and analyzing stakeholders, a critical step in ensuring project success. 🚧 𝗛𝗲𝗿𝗲’𝘀 𝘄𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗜 𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗸𝗲𝗱 𝗼𝗻: - Created stakeholder register - Mapped influence vs. interest - Built RACI matrix for clarity ✨ 𝗞𝗲𝘆 𝗛𝗶𝗴𝗵𝗹𝗶𝗴𝗵𝘁𝘀 𝗳𝗿𝗼𝗺 𝗦𝘁𝗮𝗸𝗲𝗵𝗼𝗹𝗱𝗲𝗿 𝗥𝗲𝗴𝗶𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗿 - Tailored comms by influence & interest - High Infl. / High Int. → Tax Lead, Project Sponsor, Tax Architect - High Infl. / Med. Int. → IT/ETRM Owner - Med. Infl. / High Int. → Tax Analysts, Regulatory Affairs - Med. Infl. / Med. Int. → SMEs, Audit Team 💥 𝗢𝗻𝗲 𝗯𝗶𝗴 𝘁𝗮𝗸𝗲𝗮𝘄𝗮𝘆: not all stakeholders need the same level of communication. Some require frequent, detailed updates, while others only need high-level check-ins. Getting this balance right avoids overload and ensures alignment. This activity made me think deeply about who is needed, in what role, and how best to engage them. 👉 Check out the attached slides to see the details of my stakeholder analysis for this project. Next, I’ll share how I completed the risk, cost, benefit and financial analysis sections. Which is your favorite stakeholder tool -> Stakeholder Register, Stakeholder Map, or RACI Matrix? #BAPortfolio #BusinessAnalysisCircle #BusinessAnalyst #BusinessAnalysis -- I’m the BA who asks “why,” digs deeper, and aligns business and tech teams to unlock value. ➡️ Follow me for more on problem-solving, reporting, and career journeys in business analysis. ♻️ Repost if you found this helpful.