Stakeholder – Advocate, blocker or Swiss?

Stake, by tonZ, Flickr, Some Rights Reserved

Stakeholder – A person with an interest or concern in something.

Stakeholder is someone with power and/or interest in what you are doing. Thus, a deliberate assessment of who’s who supports expectation management through careful communication.

I think you are a stakeholder on this, lets hammer this in three parts.

The People factor

People from Flickr by id–iom, Some Rights Reserved

Changing people is challenging.

Efforts to put processes working depend mostly on the human factor, regardless of how well those processes are designed and adapted for the organization.

Quite recently we had to change the way we visually represent decisions in processes because we forgot people resist too many changes in one go. The customer is always right (even if he expresses it the wrong way).

Useful aspects to consider when (gasp) changing people:

1. Establish a rapport (consider checking Dan Pink’s “To Sell is Human” book), ask “where are you from?”
2. Listen hard, don’t interrupt. Rephrase key messages you got.
3. Never asssume
4. Ask them what works!
5. Do your homework: who are the stakeholders? What moves them?
6. Use great stories – we are all  story-junkies
7. Give it a name. Brand it. Check Seth Godin

Dear reader tell me: Where are you from?

(Kudos to Paul for bringing forth this topic.)

“Every individual has a role to play”

Now for a really yummy topic.

Rugby Team, by Sam Saunders from Flickr – Some Rights Reserved

Googling the word role yelds: “The function assumed or part played by a person or thing in a particular situation”. The ending text “in a particular situation” reminds us that roles are meaningful when anything is actually being done by someone within a context – whenever a person acts for a given role in real life.

While modeling processes (for instance using BPMN2.0) roles help define what competences one must have to successfully execute a set of activities without specifying real people.

Just like in a scripted dialog for a Broadway play.