One of the most crucial skills of a product manager is stakeholder management. In my experience, I have seen a product manager interacting with almost everyone in the organization – sales, finance, CEO, marketing, engineering, support, etc. It is one of the keys to success as a product manager.

I have found the power influence grid to be very useful to managing my stakeholders. It divides the takes into consideration the interest and power/influence of the stakeholder. Based on its degree, the stakeholders are engaged, informed, satisfied, or monitored.

Less power, less interest – Monitor

Less power, more interest – Keep informed

More power, less interest – Keep satisfied

More power, more interest – Engage and consult

My stakeholder management strategy also depends on the seniority of the stakeholder, technical understanding of the stakeholder, business understanding, team structure of the stakeholder. It cannot be one size fits all

One of the recent projects I completed had a high visibility all the way up to the C suit executives due to the revenue $ involved.

There was a “at risk” customer who had threatened to leave if we were not able to meet their ask for a new product before their renewal.

as a product manager, my role was to determine scope of the requirements, identify dependencies and sketch out a plan with the development team that includes project milestones, timeline and dates.

Collaboration and communication is the key to success when it comes to stakeholder happiness. I proceeded with the work by sketching out the high level plan that I built based on the customer interaction. I created communication channel for daily updates on the progress for the leadership level, who was backing up the project so that these stakeholders are on the same level as PM and the development teams.

at the ground 0 level, I drafted high level requirements, iterating over with the Eng and professional services team so that they were part of the decision making process. This helped gain confidence from the product and Engineering stakeholders.

once I was ready with the proposal, I created a statement of work for the leadership, sales stakeholders to review and sign off.

The process was smooth and everyone was satisfied with the level of details shared without creating confusion. My approach is alway to communicate the right message at the right level of stakeholders so that everyone is included in the process while not creating confusion.