The purpose of managing stakeholder collaboration is to meet a common goal. This will result in a quality project deliverable as it helps in early resolution of the issues. It ensures the end deliverables fully meet the customer needs and all the stakeholders will come in the process with their own ideas. So, it is important for stakeholders to have the opportunity to come together to develop and share their visions and agendas.
Business analysts manage stakeholder collaboration to chaptalize on positive reaction, mitigate and avoid negative reactions. Because poor ideas or poor relationship with stakeholder can have many detrimental effects on business analysis. Which causes
1.Failure to provide quality information
2.Lack of support or lack of participation
3.Business analysis information being ignored.
So to avoid these Business analyst can actively manage relationship with stakeholder who
1.Provide service, task and other supports to the business analyst.
2.Participate in the execution of the business analyst task.
Actually, genuine stakeholders’ collaboration requires that all the stakeholders involved feel that they are heard, their opinion matters, and their contributions are recognized. Collaboration involves regular, frequent and bidirectional communication. Collaborative relationship helps maintain the free flow of information when obstacles and setbacks occur and promote a shared effort to resolve the problem and achieve a desired outcome.
Steps for successful collaboration with stakeholders:
- Research your stakeholder: The first step toward better collaboration in the approval process is identifying stakeholders with their roles. Understanding who you are working with is critical to collaborating effectively.
- Identify what is at stake for everyone: Every stakeholder is involved in the project for the different reason. Use their role and motivation to your advantage.
- Learn each stakeholder’s language: Communicating effectively with stakeholders is linked to their motivation. For example, for decision makers, every project is an investment because they are responsible for allocating project resources. In order to collaborate effectively, you should discuss the content strategy in relation to ROI.
So, the output of managing stakeholder collaboration is willingness from the stakeholders to engage in business analyst activities and interact with the business analyst when necessary.