You're overseeing a research project. How can you cultivate strong ties with stakeholders?

In some not so straight forward cases, you need to be able to get into the shoes of your stakeholder in order to understand where their needs come from. In the industry, it is evident that project managers who functionally lead engineers have better success at projects if they themselves have worked as engineers before. Communication is the key! If you understand the root from where the needs arise, you may be able to provide alternate solutions that may add value to the interests of your stakeholders, thus proving your agility and building trust for future collaborations.

One thing I have learnt is stakeholder relations take time to plan and this should be built into your project. Before you identify needs you need to map who your stakeholders are then you need to understand what potential impact they may have on your project. Once you know this you can identify what your needs and their needs and potential barriers could be. This allows you to work on potential win win scenarios but also what the common goals maybe.

A non-negotiable is a shared understanding of the outcome you wish to deliver. Without that, approach and solution can be flawed. A shared understanding of the outcome is a solid anchor point from which decisions can be made.

Involving stakeholders in the research as per their capabilities, interests and expectations will improve stakeholder engagement and ensure success of the research project. This is not difficult if they can relate to the problem that is being researched.

By removing the mindset of management from your mind and embracing the concept of engagement, you will not be better placed to collaborate with stakeholders. Let advice here that, it is not possible to manage stakeholders if you are planning towards a successful project because the word management conveys the concept of superiority over a subordinate group. It places you in a manager position and places the stakeholders in an employee or subordinate position. To successfully collaborate with stakeholders, you need to engage with them not manage them. They are not your employee and if you are to engage with them, there are some certain things you need to understand. See some of them on my page.

Communication is key. Setting up weekly meetings (cadence can vary depending on stakeholders availability and type of project) to stay updated and aligned on progress, tasks and goals. It is further useful to utilise such time to address bottlenecks if any. Additionally in my experience 2 more things have been extremely helpful in managing stakeholders and their expectations. 1. All significant updates are posted on a board/ thread/ group depending on the tools and mode of communication available. Here you can get real time feedback and escalate issues that need to be addressed immediately. 2. Status reports issued to document progress and apprise all personnel concerned. Again cadence may vary; weekly, fortnightly or monthly

Regular communication is key to keep your stakeholders and project sponsors engaged and manage their expectations. It’s hard to find the right balance between the length and frequency of updates. Starting with a short huddle is the best approach.

Communication is critical but identifying which communication channels to use with each stakeholder improves how effective you are. Being adaptable and transparent builds trust.

Yes communication is the key to achieve your goals , communication should be precise and relevant plus need to be communicated in the way that each and every person engaged in that particular project get the insight of that particular communication vai different internal as well as external channels any type of social grp or teams collaboration it should be in the interactive way so that every one wants to read or open that communication as soon as it's published.

When you go to gym, your motivation goes exponentially higher when you see some results and muscles change. Or when you water a seed, you get highly motivated and caring the moment the first leaves become visible over the soil. We as humans love information. If we don't get that at the right moment, then it causes ambiguity and unnecessary confusion. Hence, share not only the success but any updates possible. Stakeholders today like failures as much as successes because it shows that efforts are being made and things are moving.

Compartir los éxitos y cómo va el avance de un proyecto, debe ser parte del proyecto mismo. En investigación cualitativa, cuando una persona te brinda su tiempo, su experiencia y hasta sus emociones; pasa por nuestra ética profesional informar sobre los avances del proyecto. Las personas que colaboran con nosotros son parte del proyecto, no solamente una fuente de información. Y es necesario también comentar que cuando aparecen éxitos, es gracias a la participación de las personas. Este punto tiene que ver con las metodologías utilizadas, sino también con las responsabilidades profesionales y la ética laboral.

Bringing stakeholders to input and critique regularly is key in any research project. The more stakeholders are communicated and kept involved in details would help them appreciate the nuances and the real problems. This will also help build bridge between research teams and stakeholders.

In order to guarantee the integrity of the research, it is important that stakeholders can contribute to the research on the basis of selfless considerations. Therefore, dare to be critical of the added value that a stakeholder can offer. If the necessary expertise is present to contribute valuable to the research, the stakeholder can be persuaded to contribute when the research can generate sufficient interest.

Responsiveness is critical and cocreating solutions with your stakeholders develops confidence. Don’t avoid engagement on difficult issues but make sure you have the right people in the room. Don’t be patronising and again be honest and transparent.

To resolve conflict first you should understand weather it's on the person's side or on work side sometimes it's behavioural where sometimes it's the matter is of different perspectives so we should listen both the parties and try to create the open forum so that both the parties discuss it and reach out on a mutual consent then it will be win win situation for all the people involved in that particular conflict.

One this I learnt is that stakeholder interest in your project and ability to influence it changes. It is important to monitor and evaluate stakeholders consistently to ensure you adapt your engagement based on their interest and power at any given time. Listen to your stakeholder in order to understand how you need to engage and what changes you need to introduced.