What is stakeholder management ?
Posted: Sun Jan 19, 2025 8:06 am
Stakeholder management is one of the biggest challenges for professionals in the market today, including those who work as Product Managers .
PMs occupy a strategic role for companies focused on digital products . Those who hold this position have to deal with many responsibilities, tasks, and teams. Aligning all of this and keeping all parties well informed is not easy.
According to the “ Product Management Market Panorama 2021 ” survey, stakeholder management has been the top challenge for PMs for two years running. As we can see in the latest report, 41.3% of the more than 1,000 respondents ranked this responsibility as the top priority.
Product Managers' difficulties according to PM3's market overview
First of all, what is a stakeholder ? The meaning of stakeho why choose office 365 database service lder is, loosely translated, “interested party”. In terms of digital business, we can say that stakeholders are all the people involved with a product. With that in mind, there are internal and external stakeholders :
Internal or primary stakeholders : teams such as Sales, Marketing, Support, Technology are, for example, the main stakeholders of a Product Manager;
External or secondary stakeholders : customers, partners, government, community, suppliers.
Stakeholder management is nothing more than the management of the alignment of people involved in a specific process. In other words, it is like providing transparency between the parties, communicating all updates on what is being developed. This work essentially involves dealing with:
Expectations;
Deadlines;
Goals.
Because these are three very complicated aspects, especially when it involves other people, stakeholder management becomes a complex mission that requires very clear and assertive communication .
How important is it to manage stakeholders?
When we talk about business strategy (or even product strategy), it is important to keep in mind that any company is made up of people. In our day-to-day work, we will be dealing with professionals with different backgrounds and values, which directly influence the way work is carried out.
Stakeholder management is part of project management and considers these aspects as a way of uniting all the people involved in a project to achieve a goal. Considering the differences and the level of influence of each person in that delivery ensures that there will be fewer obstacles in the execution. Consequently, the work flows naturally, smoothly and with good results.
What are the main challenges in stakeholder management ?
But why, after all, is stakeholder management such a pain in the daily lives of a PM? Let's look at some of the main challenges associated with this responsibility:
Know who your stakeholders are
One basic thing that can make things a lot easier is knowing exactly who your stakeholders are . Being clear about this is the first step to being able to communicate better with these people. A very useful tool for this is the Stakeholder Matrix . With it, you can visually organize who the people involved are, based on their influence and interest in the product.
stakeholder management example with stakeholder map
Establish the level of communication with each stakeholder
Another important issue is that not everyone needs to know all the details of the planning execution. In other words, some stakeholders need a complete update (such as your team and your leaders), while others only need a more superficial update to maintain transparency (such as c-levels and leaders from other areas).
Keeping stakeholders engaged
To keep stakeholders engaged, it is naturally necessary to maintain active communication. Try to involve these people in activities that are relevant to each level in the Stakeholder Matrix , asking for opinions and suggestions. The PM can facilitate so-called co-creation through brainstorming , usability testing and user interviews, for example.
Dealing with unplanned demands
Practically every Product Manager has dealt with or will have to deal with unplanned demands from stakeholders . These are urgent tasks, with tight deadlines and which are often not even really necessary.
In these situations, the PM needs to have a lot of tact, empathy and negotiating power to argue in the best possible way. If necessary, seek support from technical leadership or developers to explain, for example, that the requested feature is not viable or does not exactly solve the problem in question. Invest in Product Analytics to obtain product data and metrics that can prove your point or, at the very least, try to close a deal with a more reasonable deadline.
PMs occupy a strategic role for companies focused on digital products . Those who hold this position have to deal with many responsibilities, tasks, and teams. Aligning all of this and keeping all parties well informed is not easy.
According to the “ Product Management Market Panorama 2021 ” survey, stakeholder management has been the top challenge for PMs for two years running. As we can see in the latest report, 41.3% of the more than 1,000 respondents ranked this responsibility as the top priority.
Product Managers' difficulties according to PM3's market overview
First of all, what is a stakeholder ? The meaning of stakeho why choose office 365 database service lder is, loosely translated, “interested party”. In terms of digital business, we can say that stakeholders are all the people involved with a product. With that in mind, there are internal and external stakeholders :
Internal or primary stakeholders : teams such as Sales, Marketing, Support, Technology are, for example, the main stakeholders of a Product Manager;
External or secondary stakeholders : customers, partners, government, community, suppliers.
Stakeholder management is nothing more than the management of the alignment of people involved in a specific process. In other words, it is like providing transparency between the parties, communicating all updates on what is being developed. This work essentially involves dealing with:
Expectations;
Deadlines;
Goals.
Because these are three very complicated aspects, especially when it involves other people, stakeholder management becomes a complex mission that requires very clear and assertive communication .
How important is it to manage stakeholders?
When we talk about business strategy (or even product strategy), it is important to keep in mind that any company is made up of people. In our day-to-day work, we will be dealing with professionals with different backgrounds and values, which directly influence the way work is carried out.
Stakeholder management is part of project management and considers these aspects as a way of uniting all the people involved in a project to achieve a goal. Considering the differences and the level of influence of each person in that delivery ensures that there will be fewer obstacles in the execution. Consequently, the work flows naturally, smoothly and with good results.
What are the main challenges in stakeholder management ?
But why, after all, is stakeholder management such a pain in the daily lives of a PM? Let's look at some of the main challenges associated with this responsibility:
Know who your stakeholders are
One basic thing that can make things a lot easier is knowing exactly who your stakeholders are . Being clear about this is the first step to being able to communicate better with these people. A very useful tool for this is the Stakeholder Matrix . With it, you can visually organize who the people involved are, based on their influence and interest in the product.
stakeholder management example with stakeholder map
Establish the level of communication with each stakeholder
Another important issue is that not everyone needs to know all the details of the planning execution. In other words, some stakeholders need a complete update (such as your team and your leaders), while others only need a more superficial update to maintain transparency (such as c-levels and leaders from other areas).
Keeping stakeholders engaged
To keep stakeholders engaged, it is naturally necessary to maintain active communication. Try to involve these people in activities that are relevant to each level in the Stakeholder Matrix , asking for opinions and suggestions. The PM can facilitate so-called co-creation through brainstorming , usability testing and user interviews, for example.
Dealing with unplanned demands
Practically every Product Manager has dealt with or will have to deal with unplanned demands from stakeholders . These are urgent tasks, with tight deadlines and which are often not even really necessary.
In these situations, the PM needs to have a lot of tact, empathy and negotiating power to argue in the best possible way. If necessary, seek support from technical leadership or developers to explain, for example, that the requested feature is not viable or does not exactly solve the problem in question. Invest in Product Analytics to obtain product data and metrics that can prove your point or, at the very least, try to close a deal with a more reasonable deadline.