How to Create Partnerships Instead of Using Stakeholders

Strategy and Product Feedback Loops

About 20 years ago, I taught a project management workshop to IT people. Their products and services did not ship outside the building—their products and services enabled the organization to make money.

During that workshop, the participants all had the same question, “How do we engage our stakeholders?”

For years, I explained that the more often the team or program could demo, the more the project or program could engage its stakeholders. (See Customers, Internal Delivery, And Trust for a recent post about demos and trust.)

Now, John Cutler has changed my mind. See TBM 8/52: The Problem With “Internal Customers”.  John recommends we consider our internal customers or stakeholders our partners.

While John changed my mind, we have the problem of changing the minds of these fine people. How do we create partnerships?

First, we start by being trustworthy because trust is the basis of every partnership.

Can Your Stakeholders/Partners Trust You to Deliver?

The more frequently you can demo, the more your partners can trust you to deliver something. That's why the duration of the internal feedback loops is so important.

I used the image above in Multiple Short Feedback Loops Support Innovation. The faster the team (the shortest blue feedback loops) releases a feature, the more often we can change the roadmap (in red) and the strategy (in green).

That means the faster the teams release, the more everyone, including those stakeholders, can trust you.

If you can't release something every day or every other day, how can your stakeholders trust you to deliver anything?

You also need to trust that your stakeholders won't demand everything all at once. (IME, that occurs because the stakeholders can't tell when they will see anything at all.)

Start with yourself and the team:

  • Finish something valuable every day. (Every other day at worst.) Often, something valuable solves a problem for a customer.
  • Demo that value on a regular cadence. Explain that value from two perspectives: what the customer can do with this feature and how the company can make revenue from this value.
  • Record that demo so everyone can see it when they have a chance.

Those acts of rapid (small) finishing and demos create short feedback loops inside the team.

Once your stakeholders can trust you to deliver small pieces of functionality, you demonstrated your trustworthiness. You can now request trustworthy partnerships.

Request Trust from Your Partners/Stakeholders

Too many stakeholders act as order-demanders. “Do these three projects and all of this feature set all in the next quarter. Thanks, bye. See you then.”

That's not a partnership.

Instead, you can ask these stakeholders to work with you, not as order-demanders. Show them your feedback loops and your cycle time. If your cycle time includes time you wait for them, make sure they see that.

Then, explain that they don't have to meet with you for a long time, but they do need to meet with you frequently.

For example, a product leader needs to be available to the team during each day to answer questions and accept stories. The more often the product leader is available, the fewer meetings the product leader needs.

Adam, a product leader, has changed his meetings and workshops. He's frequently available to the 5-person team for five- and ten-minute question-and-answer sessions during the day. Their questions help him refine the next feature in this feature set.

Adam conducts a weekly 20-minute workshop with the team to clarify the rest of this feature set or to start the next feature set refinement. And, because the team tends to swarm on features, everyone clarifies their understanding of a given feature each day. This team rarely needs a one-hour meeting to refine or plan anything. They also don't need standups because they work together on one item at a time.

Jill, another product leader, works with a larger team of 12 people. They tend to break into smaller sub-teams of 2, 3, and 5. This team only needs a few minutes to plan when the subteams finish something. While Jill spends time daily with the subteams, she rarely spends more than one 20-minute workshop a week either, refining a feature set.

Cycle time matters, especially management decision time.

But these would-be partners might not believe you. What do they get out of this partnership?

Clarify the WIIFM

There's a common term when we talk about influence: “What's In It for Me?” That's the WIIFM.

So many leaders tell me they don't have enough time for anything. When I ask them to partner with others, they groan and ask, “How do I make the time for another meeting, for more decisions?”

That's when I show them the feedback loop image and ask, “What would you get if you could decide on the roadmaps more often? Or change the project portfolio more often? Or, experiment with the corporate strategy? Because that's what shorter feedback loops at all levels will get you. And that's how you can partner with the rest of the organization.”

That's when we talk about order-demanding now and how their jobs and work would change then. And sometimes, these people don't want to try partnering. They think that decentralizing their decisions would wreak havoc. (Read Feedback Loops Help When To Centralize Or Decentralize Product-Based Decisions.)

If these leaders don't check in with the people at the various levels, the leaders might be correct. But when we talk about what they could get:

  • Faster release of features, which means
  • Faster revenue recognition, and faster acquisition of new customers, which might influence
  • Longer retention of customers and more service revenue
  • … and possibly more benefits

These leaders start to recognize that a partnership is better than a stakeholder-ship.

The leaders have to relinquish control (which they don't really have) and look for more ways to share decision-making.

Partner, Not Stakeholder

The more business agility you want, the more partnerships across the organization you need. Not just in management cohorts but in creating allies so you can complete work. (See Modern Management: Three Tips To Create A Congruent Culture.) That does mean your organization needs to use the idea of flow efficiency over resource efficiency.

And remembering that long-ago client, here's what I would say to that client now:

“You don't need to engage those people if you partner with them. What would have to be true for you to partner with them? What prevents you from partnering now?”

We could have a fine discussion then about the corporate culture. I am sure that discussion would include what to change for whom and when.

I really like John's idea of partnering. What would have to be true for you to turn your stakeholders into partners? Thanks, John, for helping me think this through.

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