Stakeholder engagement entails working collaboratively with stakeholders to introduce the project, elicit their requirements, manage expectations, resolve issues, negotiate, prioritize, problem solve, and make decisions. Engaging stakeholders requires the application of soft skills, such as active listening, interpersonal skills, and conflict management, as well as leadership skills such as establishing the vision and critical thinking.
Communication with stakeholders can take place via written or verbal means, and it can be formal or informal. Examples of each type of communication are shown in Table 2-1.
Table 2-1. Types of Communication
Communication methods include push, pull, and interactive communication:
- Push. Communication sent to stakeholders such as memos, emails, status reports, voice mail, and so forth. Push communication is used for one-way communications with individual stakeholders or groups of stakeholders. Push communication inhibits the ability to immediately gauge reaction and assess understanding; therefore, it should be used deliberately.
- Pull. Information sought by the stakeholder, such as a project team member going to an intranet to find communication policies or templates, running internet searches, and using online repositories. Pulling information is used for indirect sensing of stakeholder concerns.
Engagement goes deeper than pushing or pulling communication. Engagement is interactive. It includes an exchange of information with one or more stakeholders such as conversations, phone calls, meetings, brainstorming, product demos, and the like.
With all forms of communication, quick feedback loops provide useful information to:
- Confirm the degree to which the stakeholder(s) heard the message.
- Determine if stakeholders agree with the message.
- Identify nuanced or other unintended messages the recipient detected.
- Gain other helpful insights.
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