Forget service design, forget applications technology prowess, the most important aspect of any project is stakeholder engagement, empathy and communication. People make systems and technology work, not the other way around.

The ability to understand people’s perception, understand their objections, is a key aspect of any project operation. To do otherwise risks project failure. It is vital to pay equal as much attention to stakeholder management and communication as you do to solution design and analysis. Project participants hold insights, good and bad, as to their perceptions of current state and the proposed solution. Without relationships, understanding and communication, project risks and opportunities are not addressed.

I am often asked how you handle difficult stakeholders. My answer is with open arms. I would rather know the enemy, false or true, than have someone on the face of it agreeing to the problem and change solution, but on the other hand having a different view and not expressing it. These are the real difficult stakeholders as cognitive dissidence is the evil of any relationship, be it business or personal. I have found by experience that this scenario builds false hope and downstream project problems if not failure.

Solution Selling as an Approach

Business process review and transformation is exactly the same operation and practices of solution selling, where unless you have addressed all the stakeholders and users of the solution in respect to both business and personal needs of each individual, you haven't got a successful sale of the project operation.

In solution selling uncovered and not addressed issues are called red flags. In business process review and solution architecture operations it is no different. Stakeholders not met, not related to, not communicated, and with personal and business issues not addressed are red flags to the project.

In projects, unlike in solution selling, it is not usual to document and address the personal win of stakeholder individuals through the implementation of a particular change project. Rather the practice is more to focus on the business impact. Understanding the personal views of individuals, no matter how irrational or unfounded, are key to addressing both the real and unfounded problems that the project will face plus the opportunity to build advocates that will promote and support the change.

Accordingly, business analysts and solution architects need to use a framework to document profiles and action plans that captures all of the varying stakeholder profiles from C level approvers through technical and users, in respect to both business and personal needs and their degree of influence to the project. Any red flags through unmet or unaddressed issues need to have an action plan to remove these potential project impacts.

Telling Rather Than Selling

A key element of stakeholder understanding of the objectives and approach of projects is how the project team communicate with stakeholders. The common failing in developing communication is that it is being created by expert and informed personnel, who are telling rather than selling. As project leaders we get so caught up with the solution to a problem we have identified. Project personnel seem to forget that all of the stakeholders may not have been taken through this journey of problem, analysis and solution and simply talk/tell about the solution.

The second failing is project people are an expert in techniques and frameworks which to the average user are unfamiliar and may not be understood. Additionally, at senior levels there is a limit to time allocation, where lengthy presentations are not a viable method for communication and decision understanding and acceptance.

In this regard we need to take a lesson from both the Japanese language and the Japanese business practices. The language consists of ideograms to remove ambiguity and assist understanding. The business practice for communicating process improvement, change or operations is usually achieved on one single page of communication. This provides the ability to provide cause, affect, solution and justification in context and fully visible. This acts as a powerful medium to inform, educate, provide understanding and achieve agreement on the project solution approach.

The final piece in this jigsaw of solution architecture communication and user understanding and agreement, is the rapid pace of the move to the digital and e-commerce service solutions with the issues of the unknown and unmet user. Where the user is not the internal person but the unmet external public entity.

Solutions designed to be accepted and operated successfully by a range of end user customer stakeholders requires far more effort in stakeholder communication and validation of the solution approach and operation, than internally operated systems. If there are weak points in process operation or technology architecture these users will uncover these and break the system, and unlike the internal user they will walk away.

Ron Perry is a Principal Consultant at InfoBis