Tips for Managing Stakeholder Requests in Projects

Why 73% of Projects Fail and How I Stopped Losing Stakeholder Support Let me tell you a quick story. Years ago, I was leading an ops overhaul that was supposed to streamline internal reporting. Everything looked good on paper, timelines, budget, resource allocation. I checked every box… Except one: I didn’t fully engage the stakeholders who would actually use the system every day. 🚨Big mistake. Within 3 weeks of launch, adoption lagged, teams worked around it, and leadership questioned the ROI. That’s when it hit me—involvement doesn’t equal alignment. Just because stakeholders are informed doesn’t mean they’re invested. So I changed my approach. Here’s what I did: • Identified key influencers across departments, not just top execs, but daily users and frontline managers. • Used long-form discovery sessions to understand their actual pain points (not just the ones listed on a dashboard). • Built a feedback loop into every sprint cycle. Small changes. Real-time validation. • Created internal linkages between project goals and departmental KPIs (this one’s huge). The result? 🎯 41% faster implementation. ✅ 3X higher adoption in the first 30 days. 💬 Consistent stakeholder engagement from kickoff to post-launch. Why does this matter for you? If you’re a project manager, ops lead, or department head, especially in finance, tech, or healthcare, here’s your reality: 📌 You’re juggling timelines, compliance, and team bandwidth. 📌 You’re expected to “drive transformation” and still “not disrupt the day-to-day.” 📌 You’re measured by results but those results start with buy-in. So ask yourself: Are you just updating stakeholders or are you empowering them to shape outcomes? That’s the difference between a delivered project and a sustained solution. If you’re tired of rework, delays, or lukewarm adoption, start by rethinking how you engage your stakeholders. Involve early. Involve meaningfully. Involve often. ✅ Start with a 30-minute alignment session before you build your next project charter. ✅ Don’t just collect feedback—co-create the solution with the people who live it. You’ll thank yourself later. Let’s stop managing projects and start leading with people who matter. #ProjectManagement #StakeholderEngagement #LeadershipInAction

🚀 Lessons Learned: Navigating Product Management at Haitians in Tech 🚀 In the vibrant, fast-paced world of running a nonprofit like Haitians in Tech, coupled with the challenges of product management, I’ve encountered my fair share of trials and triumphs. A particularly enlightening experience was navigating the complexities of balancing stakeholder expectations with our project’s core objectives and constraints. We embarked on a project with a clear problem to solve, but as we progressed, the scope began to swell with the diverse wants of multiple stakeholders. Despite our best intentions and adherence to roadmaps, we found ourselves veering towards a “Frankenstein” product – a mix of features that, while individually valuable, strayed from the essential need we aimed to address. This experience was a turning point for me, teaching valuable lessons in product management: 1. Stick to the Core Vision: The importance of staying true to the minimum viable need cannot be overstated. It’s the north star that guides your project to its intended impact. 2. Effective Stakeholder Management: Learning to navigate and sometimes push back against stakeholders’ wants was crucial. It’s about finding the delicate balance between being accommodating and maintaining the integrity of the project’s goals. 3. Prioritization and Focus: The experience reinforced the need to prioritize rigorously and focus on deliverables that align closely with our core objectives. It’s not just about doing things right but doing the right things. 4. Clear Communication: Transparent, continuous communication with stakeholders about what can (and cannot) be achieved within the set timeframe and why certain decisions are made is vital for alignment and support. 5. Agility and Adaptability: Finally, being agile and ready to adapt plans based on critical feedback and real-time learning is essential for steering projects back on course when they start to drift. Sharing this reflection isn’t about highlighting a setback but celebrating the growth that comes from it. I’ve learned that the art of product management, especially in a nonprofit context, is as much about managing people and expectations as it is about managing timelines and deliverables. I’d love to hear from others: How do you ensure your projects stay aligned with their core mission in the face of expanding scopes and diverse stakeholder demands? #NonprofitTech #ProductManagement #StakeholderManagement #ProjectScope #TechForGood

Simple sounding requests are often full of complexity. As an #analyst, you already know that. But your stakeholders often don't. When our stakeholders ask us for an analysis, they haven't usually thought it through completely. Part of our job is to guide them through that process, and force them to define their terms, often at a level of detail that they've never considered. We have to be precise, sometimes annoyingly so. For example, being in #supplychain, my team and I have challenges identifying "active items." It sounds obvious, but we can't just consider launch and exit dates: 1. Are we talking that are active globally, regionally, or just a single BU? 2. We sometimes have a few different versions of the same item - how should we count those? 3. Sometimes we sell retired product to get it out of the warehouse. Does that make them active again? For how long? 4. What about retired product that's still on retail shelves? The list goes on. So what do you do in these situations? 1. Take a few minutes on your own to explore all the possible aspects to consider. Prep a list of questions for your stakeholders. These questions are already annoying - you don't want to pepper them with one-offs all week long. 2. Work with your stakeholders to agree on definitions. Find out from them if any standard definitions already exist within the company - and if you're deviating from them, understand why. 3. Document your decision with your stakeholder. Depending on how formal you need to be, this could simply be keeping good meeting notes, preparing a SOW for them to sign off, or something in between. 4. Provide clarity to the definitions in your final deliverable. Include a page of definitions or embed them directly in your analysis if you can. Highlight any key assumptions you had to make. This process isn't always a fun one, but the alternative - ambiguity, inconsistency, and eventually a lack of confidence in the analysis - is much worse. #analytics #supplychainanalytics #citizendevelopment #lowcode #nocode

I used to think the hardest part of data work was the data. Turns out, it's the people. Especially the ones asking for a dashboard by Friday. And then never looking at it. 🤬 Let’s be honest: the relationship between data teams and stakeholders often feels like: → “Can you build me a dashboard that shows everything?” → “What exactly do you want to know?” → “Just... everything. I’ll know it when I see it.” This isn’t just misalignment. It’s a slow bleed on everyone’s time and trust. And most fixes miss the mark: “Just improve stakeholder communication” ← Vague. “Get better at prioritization” ← Great. But who gets to prioritize? “Let them self-serve” ← Cool, but most self-service turns into ‘self-sabotage’ without proper support. Here’s what actually helps: 1. Assume misalignment is the default. Don’t expect stakeholders to speak in “metric definitions.” That’s your job. 2. Move upstream. Influence the questions before they hit your backlog. 3. Co-design requests, don’t just take tickets. Treat the initial ask as a rough draft. And workshop the real question together. 4. Understand their challenges. Put yourself in their shoes. Understand their goals and struggles. A healthy stakeholder relationship isn’t built on dashboards. It’s built on shared understanding and respectful pushback. Because your job isn’t to deliver data. It’s to deliver clarity. ♻️ Repost if you ever delivered a dashboard on a Friday evening and no one ever looked at it. → Follow me, Sebastian, for daily tips on building impactful data teams in the AI-age.

Getting everyone on the same page about the ask is particularly challenging in the field of #PartnerOperations. Workflow diagrams do a lot to help. My admiration and utilization of workflow diagrams has increased nearly exponentially over the past couple of years. They are a combination of visual and written guidance that helps people visualize what you're asking for. They can be as detailed or high level as you want, as simple or complex as you need, and as pretty or plain as you feel comfortable creating. When someone comes to me asking for system updates that impact process, we start with workflow. First, define what is. This may already exist, maybe not, and I go as granular as possible to uncover the depth of the ask. Then, define what should be. This is high level ideal state with the stakeholder asking for change. We'll narrow it down and refine it as we go with other groups and feedback on impact. These two flows become the center of truth for what we're doing, regardless of whatever else is asked for in the PMO. Modern workflow tools make this kind of collaboration easier than ever and, if done well, they can act as your requirements doc for the dev teams building the epics, stories and sprints to deliver the project. If you're building requirements, what tools are you finding most helpful in the effort to deliver impactful work?

“Unspoken expectations are premeditated resentments.” — Neil Strauss A friend of mine does a lot of marriage counseling. He shared this observation with me: “Most of the problems I see come down to missed expectations. Too often, those expectations were unspoken.” That's not just an issue in marriage relationships. It’s true with our stakeholders, too. There are expectations that something will be included in a project—or that it won’t be. It was never talked about—or at least, not clearly discussed. But the expectations remain. So much of project management comes down to managing the balance between expectations and reality. The more aligned stakeholder expectations are with the reality of what we’re delivering, the more likely the project is to be viewed by them as a success. What are some ways to maintain that balance? Here are some ideas from our Essentials of Project Management course: ✔️ Give more visibility to assumptions. Document them. Review them with stakeholders. Update them. Don't keep assumptions tucked away in your head. Pro tip: People say all the time: "Don't assume! You know what the word assume means, right?" That's terrible advice for projects. There are always assumptions. The problem is when they're overly optimistic or not communicated and considered. ✔️ Use exclusions to help stakeholders understand what they WON’T be getting. For the longest time, I chafed against documenting exclusions. If I didn’t tell someone they were going to get something, why should I have to tell them they aren’t? Because they make assumptions. Pro tip: Out-of-scopes don’t always mean "never." They might just mean they’re exclusions for the upcoming delivery. It’s okay for something to be out-of-scope for now but on the roadmap for later. ✔️ Have frequent check-ins. The frequency can depend on the project, but our experience shows that reality and expectations can start to diverge if your check-ins are more than two weeks apart. ✔️ Validate scope as it’s completed. In those check-ins, let your stakeholders see what’s been done. There’s nothing like actually seeing a deliverable to help a stakeholder understand if there's alignment with their expectations. ✔️ Increase trust with your stakeholders. As obvious as this may seem, it's worth being reminded that the dirty little secret of business is that everything is done on relationships. When there's trust, you're just checking in. When there's not, you're checking up. Understanding flows faster and more clearly when there's trust. 👉👉 What else would you add to this list? ------------------------------- “I thought my husband would ____________.” “I grew up in a house where my mom would _____________ so I assumed my wife would as well.” Yeah, that's a recipe for trouble. Marriage relationships can struggle because of missed and unstated expectations. So can projects. According to Neil Strauss, being more clear about expectations can avoid premeditated resentments.

Death of a 1,000 ad hoc requests? How to stop the bleeding? Make it harder for stakeholders to make requests of the analytics team. When it's too easy to make a request through Slack or email, analytics teams will drown in requests. What to do instead? Create an intake process. It can be a Jira portal, Google form, or message/email template. Here's the process: 1) Stakeholder fills out the form. 2) Stakeholder submits to analytics team. 3) Analytics transfers to project management system. 4) Analytics obtains and writes full requirements. 5) Analytics prioritizes and communicates expectations 6) Analytics completes work as needed. The added friction of the process ensures the most fruitful work makes it as a request. Stakeholders have to consider if the request is worth following this process. New requests will be better thought-out and the analytics team will have more space to work on other projects. We don't have to stop the bleeding if we stop the 1,000 cuts from happening. How do you manage stakeholder requests?

💡 𝐋𝐞𝐬𝐬𝐨𝐧𝐬 𝐈 𝐋𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐞𝐝 𝐓𝐡𝐫𝐨𝐮𝐠𝐡𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐦𝐲 𝐏𝐫𝐨𝐣𝐞𝐜𝐭 𝐌𝐚𝐧𝐚𝐠𝐞𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐂𝐚𝐫𝐞𝐞𝐫, 𝐏𝐚𝐫𝐭 5 𝐨𝐟 20 5. 𝐁𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐒𝐮𝐠𝐠𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐎𝐩𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬 𝐭𝐨 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐓𝐚𝐛𝐥𝐞 🛑 One of the fastest ways to stall a project? Bringing up problems without offering any paths forward. In project management—and especially in PMO leadership—success often comes down to this simple habit: 💡 𝘈𝘭𝘸𝘢𝘺𝘴 𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘦 𝘵𝘰 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘵𝘢𝘣𝘭𝘦 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘴𝘶𝘨𝘨𝘦𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘴 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘰𝘱𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘴. It doesn’t mean you need to have all the answers. It means you show initiative, drive progress, and help others make better decisions, faster. Examples where this mindset is critical: 🔧 Don’t just raise a roadblock—bring a few ways to solve it. 📅 Don’t ask “When can you get this done?” and accept “I don’t know.” Offer a draft date and let them react. 🧠 Don’t enter planning meetings empty-handed. Come with ideas. People respect those who help steer the conversation. When you bring forward suggestions: ✅ You create momentum ✅ You spark productive dialogue ✅ You make it easier for stakeholders to engage ✅ You build credibility and leadership presence ✅ You accelerate buy-in and reduce resistance Even if your idea isn’t the one they choose, offering it moves the group closer to a real solution. 𝐓𝐡𝐚𝐭’𝐬 𝐡𝐨𝐰 𝐭𝐫𝐮𝐬𝐭 𝐢𝐬 𝐛𝐮𝐢𝐥𝐭—𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐡𝐨𝐰 𝐏𝐌𝐎𝐬 𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐢𝐫 𝐬𝐞𝐚𝐭 𝐚𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐭𝐚𝐛𝐥𝐞. 👉 Progress favors the prepared. Come with options. 🤔 What do you think? Have you ever tried to bring up issues or plan projects without presenting suggestions and options? If so, how did that go? How do your stakeholders and leaders react when you bring suggestions and options to the table? Let me know your thoughts in the comments! ♻️ Repost if you liked the content of this post! _________________ 🔔 Ring the bell to follow me on LinkedIn for topics on #ProjectManagement, #ProgramManagement, #PMO, #BusinessTransformation, #CareerTips, and #Leadership. #ProactiveMindset #StakeholderEngagement #BusinessImpact #ProblemSolving #StrategyExecution #PMOSuccess

Scope creep is something that happens to almost every project. 🤐 How you, as the project manager, react to scope creep can often be the difference between a successful project 😀 or one that runs over budget and time. 😒 One recommendation I give is to make sure you document any requested scope changes (regardless of who they come from). This is critical both during the project and after it is completed to be able to go back and see how many scope changes were made, why, and who requested them. In addition, make sure you have conversations with the stakeholders about requested scope changes. When a change to scope is requested, the first thing I recommend is the project team do research and determine the impact the requested scope change will have on budget, risk and timeline. Make sure you go back to the person requesting the scope change and share this information. Sometimes, when they see the impact the scope change could have they will change their mind. Even if they don't, unless the request is coming from the CEO, other stakeholders should have a "say" in the requested scope change. Share the information with them and have a robust discussion before any decisions are made. What things have you done to help reduce the impact of "scope creep?" #projectmanagement #leadership #achangeinlatitudeconsulting #continuousimprovement #lean #leansixsigma