Communicating With Stakeholders

Hi there! 

How's it going? 

How have you been? I'm hoping good?

Today, I'll be talking about communicating with Stakeholders as a Product Manager or any other role really.

One important thing that holds a team and/or an organisation together is communication. When there is a bridge in communication among stakeholders, then there would be a huge problem in how a company is run. 

First, who are the Stakeholders? Stakeholders are the individuals who are directly or indirectly affected by a situation or in this case, a product/project. 

Different aspects of an organization have their own stakeholders depending on the activities to be done.

For example, if the product team wants to build a feature, the affected stakeholders would be determined based on what that feature entails. If they want to build a compliance-based feature, like something that has to do with KYC (for example), the Stakeholders would be the Product team, Engineering team, Compliance team, senior Stakeholders like the CEO, CPO etc and the Customers. 

In every process, you'll need to put your customers in mind. You can't create a process that would be difficult for your customers. 

So, in cases like this, the first thing that needs to be done is to ask the question; "Who are the first point of contact for this feature?", " Who are the most affected persons at the initial state of this build?"

When you're able to figure this out, then the appropriate communication channel can happen.

For the example I gave above, in that case, the first point of contact would be for the product team to discuss what needs to be worked on. When this is settled, the next point of contact would be Compliance. They would help guide the process to be sure it aligns well with the appropriate standard. Once that is settled, then it's communicated to the engineering team and then the senior stakeholders. 

This clear communication channel would make sure all affected persons are aware and the entire development process is as seamless as possible. 

In every process, it's important to communicate clearly to the affected parties. 

In some cases, the affected stakeholders would be every team in the company. It's also important that they are communicated to based on how the situation affects them. 

Another thing to look at is the form of communication. I always recommend multiple communication channels;

- Company's general communication channel e.g; Slack, Skype, WhatsApp etc

- Verbal communications e.g; Google Meet calls, Microsoft Teams etc

- Documentations e.g.; Notion, Google Docs, Microsoft Word etc.

The main reason is so that everyone is aware of what is being communicated in multiple places. That way, even if one person forgets, you have references to point to what was communicated. 

Communication is very important in any aspect of life and is very key in Product Management. Always make sure you keep Stakeholders in the loop of processes so everyone is well informed. 

One of the issues with bad communication is that it can lead to unnecessary meetings and in some serious cases, back-and-forth arguments. So make sure you're carefully and thoughtfully communicating with Stakeholders well. It can be tiring sometimes, but it's needed for a seamless process and work. 

I hope this was helpful.

Till next time. Remain awesome.

Franny.