Hybrid Project Management

12Maintaining Stakeholder Engagement

Planning for communication and stakeholder engagement is just the first part of successful stakeholder interaction. Throughout the project you will be managing stakeholder expectations, addressing concerns, and resolving issues. These activities require effective communication skills.

In this chapter you'll learn how to build your communication competencies to effectively engage with stakeholders. This includes giving and receiving feedback and recognizing and addressing communication blockers. Because meetings are such a big part of leading projects, we'll discuss some of the more common meetings for adaptive and predictive projects.

ENGAGING STAKEHOLDERS

The best way to maintain satisfied stakeholders is to communicate effectively and efficiently. Effective communication is providing the right information, in a timely fashion, in a format that works for people. Efficient communication is providing the necessary information to the right people. In other words, send relevant information only to the people who need it. Responding to a message with “reply to all” with a rambling monologue is not effective or efficient. Following your stakeholder communication plan should help you maintain effective and efficient communication practices.

There are a few more guidelines to help maintain good relationships with your stakeholders. The first is to seek stakeholder input when planning the project and incorporate their feedback into the project ...