This post is syndicated from: DOCUMENT articles.
In earlier articles, we established the importance of stakeholder satisfaction to a document design project’s success. Stakeholders are your best source of first-hand knowledge and the ultimate source of approval. It is essential that they help steer the direction of your design, throughout the project. How can you engage your stakeholders throughout the project without unnecessarily burdening the project or the stakeholders? By creating a knowledge team, made up of a representative from each stakeholder department, and involving them intensely but infrequently. This can be done in three collaborative workshops: a Knowledge Exchange Workshop at the beginning of the project and two Prototype Critique Workshops later. Today, we will discuss the Knowledge Exchange Workshop, which has two primary goals. First, the Knowledge Exchange Workshop (KEW) should provide a robust information exchange regarding the current state of the document (or document family) you're redesigning, the customers who will receive it, the departments that are served by it and the environment in which it must perform. Second, the KEW should provide a comprehensive requirements/wish list from the knowledge team. Your design team and technical specialists may very well add additional requirements later, but the KEW is the opportunity for the knowledge team’s desires to be captured. Your current information gathering methodology may use individual or small group interviews to gather stakeholder requirements. Often, design teams meet with stakeholder groups separately because they know there will be disagreements between the groups, but from the "people" perspective, a single KEW pays far greater dividends. You can still use most of your usual techniques for tying down current state descriptions and identifying requirements, although you may want to modify them somewhat for the collaborative environment. Having all of your knowledge team in the room at the same time allows them to educate and enlighten each other, from each of their unique perspectives. The KEW brings the stakeholders' differences out in the open and gives you the opportunity to help them understand that many different needs must be balanced during the project, that the final design will most likely not be able to provide everything that everyone wants and that creative collaboration will help satisfy as many stakeholder desires as possible. If stakeholders' differences are not dealt with in an environment in which you have control, they will have to be dealt with later, usually under less ideal circumstances. Your knowledge team members bring a lot more to the project than just knowledge of their departments’ operations. They possess attributes such as creativity, insight, experience and motivation. This adds richness and depth to the interchange of information and ideas. However, the personal attributes that your team members bring to the project are not always positive. Some might try to use your project for political positioning. Others might understand their own functional areas well but lack the understanding necessary to accept the needs of other departments. Some will make suggestions that are intended to protect their jobs or the jobs of others around them. Some team members with valuable knowledge and experience will be reluctant to participate in decision making because of the fear of commitment or perhaps because they are change-averse. Your job is to put all of your knowledge team’s good attributes to work and redirect the less-helpful inclinations, as you lead them through your project, listening attentively to their needs, showing that you understand them, helping them understand the necessity of balancing many (sometimes conflicting) needs and producing a product that meets as many of their needs as possible. This is how you gain your stakeholders’ respect throughout the project, starting with your initial knowledge exchange and continuing until the final specs are put to bed. It makes them part of the project, and in the process, they “buy in” to the project, the process and the design they co-create with your design team. Paying more attention to the “people” aspects of your project and engaging more directly with your stakeholders will not only improve your project, it will make you a far better project manager. GEORGE R. WILLIAMS [ george@strategicsolutions.com ] has over 30 years of experience in the computer field, has extensive marketing and sales experience and has been a consultant in the application and marketing of technology for more than 15 years.
