April 21, 2005
Working with Difficult Stakeholders

Patrick Mayfield offers some suggestions:

Find our their 'WIIFM' ('What's in it for me?'). What benefits could there be in your programme for that stakeholder. What are the 'wins' for them. This is a deeper, and more personal level of stakeholder analysis that is particularly warranted for the difficult individual.

You need to be clear about what your fall-back position will be if you can't get agreement - your BATNA ('Best Alternative to a Negotiated Agreement'). In a programme environment this could mean some radical re-scoping of the programme to exclude the need for co-operation from his stakeholder or even in the most extreme cases recommending that the programme is stopped altogether.

...via Cutting Through

Posted by dcoates at April 21, 2005 04:07 PM