I’m sitting here on a Sunday thinking about work so I thought it best to get some thoughts down on “paper” as an outlet.
The thing that’s playing on my mind is a situation where we have to get a number of the different teams within our organisation all pulling together to make sure an upcoming launch works really smoothly and has maximum impact for our customers. I realised that on Monday when we have some calls on the subject I need to make sure we start from the position of agreeing that we are doing the right thing. Sounds obvious but I have the feeling that people are just doing their jobs and that their hearts are not really in it. Perhaps they don’t feel appropriately ”consulted” up until this point, or they actually have other more pressing things on their mind but we can’t go forward without support.
The tricky thing is going to be phrasing the question in a non-threatening manner that doesn’t make people defensive but instead drives an honest and productive conversation. I was pleasantly surprised the other day to be complemented by someone further up the “food chain” than me that I’d learnt to think a little longer before opening my mouth! Something I’ve been working hard on, speaking the truth without alienating those who I’ll need to work with for months and years to come (hopefully).
I’m currently in the process of applying for a job internally to become the Principle Regional Product Marketing Manager for Security and a lot of the challenges in this new role if I get it will be ensuring that situations like the one I’ve described don’t happen as often in future. Having a consistent flow of communication around current and future product and solution strategy with the various stakeholders internally and externally is critical to our success.
Listening to: Delphic – Acolyte
You should try something called PAM developed by Alliantist.com who are Stakeholder Practioners. You can contact Mark Darby (Founder) on mark.darby – at – alliantist.com. The software is great for project management but also managing stakeholders both internally and externally.
Thanks Paul – I’ll look at that. Unfortunately, most of what needs to get done is so ad-hoc, most of it gets done on email and phone. As my good friend Sig would say, Barely Repeatable Processes.
Do you use it?
Mike, in answer to your questions yes I use it! Worked with\nthem to add tasks to the functionality so you can now just assign\ntasks to people in the environment so deals with ad-hoc work as\nwell as projects. I’ll send you an invite to try out.\nPaul.