{"id":13502,"date":"2019-08-06T15:52:01","date_gmt":"2019-08-06T03:52:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.psoda.com\/global\/?p=13502"},"modified":"2025-07-03T01:49:44","modified_gmt":"2025-07-03T01:49:44","slug":"help-my-stakeholders-want-me-to-fail","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.psoda.com\/global\/2019\/08\/06\/help-my-stakeholders-want-me-to-fail\/","title":{"rendered":"Help! My stakeholders want me to fail"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Welcome to the latest &#8220;Ask a project manager&#8221; blog. This week\u2019s question is about coping with difficult stakeholders:<br \/>\n<em>I\u2019ve just been given a project that, in all honesty, will make or break my career. It\u2019s a fantastic opportunity but, and it\u2019s a big but, the stakeholders are horrendous! They all want completely different things, they hate each other and in some instances fundamentally oppose my project. They\u2019re not adverse to making their feelings known, have money to burn and will do anything they can to make the project fail.<\/em><br \/>\n<em>What can I do?<\/em><br \/>\nThanks for the question, it sounds like an almost impossible situation! Here are some of my suggestions &#8211; hopefully they can help you safely navigate those troubled waters with those difficult stakeholders:<\/p>\n<h2><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">Leverage your sponsor<\/span><\/h2>\n<p>My first piece of advice is to leverage your sponsor as much as you can. He or she is going to be in a really good position to help you get the stakeholders on board. If they can\u2019t do that, then they will be able to help you put a management plan in place.<br \/>\nWhen you go and speak to your sponsor, make sure you take concrete examples of the difficult stakeholders\u2019 negative behaviour. That might sound a bit obvious but it\u2019s for very good reasons:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>It\u2019s much easier to fix a problem when you know exactly what it is<\/li>\n<li>There\u2019s less wriggle room for the people creating the drama when faced with a real example<\/li>\n<li>It shows that you\u2019re not sweating the small stuff and that there actually is a problem<\/li>\n<li>You\u2019ll enhance your credibility<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Make sure you get some firm commitments from the sponsor on when they will get involved as well as the type of help they\u2019ll give you. This isn\u2019t the time for wooliness!<\/p>\n<h2><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">Speak to the wider project team<\/span><\/h2>\n<p>It\u2019s always a good idea to get other people\u2019s perspectives, so it\u2019s worth asking the project team and anyone else connected to the team for their opinions. I\u2019d suggest you do it one-on-one as people are more likely to be forthcoming when there\u2019s no one else around. Use this opportunity to get as much information about the stakeholders as possible. It\u2019s also worth using this time to dig deeper and find out if there are any underlying reasons why people are so anti each other and the project. You never know, you might come across a nugget of information that you can use to your advantage.<\/p>\n<h2><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">Read the existing project documentation<\/span><\/h2>\n<p>If documentation exists, make sure that you read it. There will likely be lots of really useful information in there that you can use. Pay close attention to the stakeholder matrix and engagement plan (if they exist). Just be aware that the information in there may be out of date or inaccurate so it\u2019s worth revisiting. Also be aware of what\u2019s not there. Often insights come from information that\u2019s not included. Look at everything as a whole, not disparate pieces. Stepping back and taking a wider view often pays dividends in situations like this. Mainly because people don\u2019t want to write anything negative down.<\/p>\n<h2><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">Expert communications<\/span><\/h2>\n<p>Now isn\u2019t the time to skimp on spending money. If the stakeholders really are as difficult as you say, you need to hit them with the big guns. In this case, it\u2019s buying in expert communications and change management help.<br \/>\nWork with the experts to create a really detailed stakeholder matrix and a multi-pronged communication, engagement and change management programme.<br \/>\nDon\u2019t plan too far into the future. Consider having a detailed plan for the first two week, a slightly less detailed plan for the following two weeks and headline only for the two weeks after that. Make sure you put in plenty of metrics! This is one plan that you need to micromanage. That way you\u2019ll get early notice of any problems and will be able to fix it before it goes completely off the rails. I\u2019d go so far as to suggest that for the first two weeks at least you should be meeting with the change management and communications teams daily.<br \/>\nYou can plan the next two weeks after a week on the current plan. This way you have the flexibility to quickly adapt and modify the plans and any content.<\/p>\n<h2><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">Keep perspective<\/span><\/h2>\n<p>Whatever you do, don\u2019t be surprised if, even after all your efforts, the stakeholders still stay off side. It\u2019s not uncommon for behaviour to be so ingrained that nothing you do will change it. It could also be that the stakeholders are just fundamentally opposed to your project and you will never make them agree.<br \/>\nI hope this has given you some ideas on how to manage these particularly difficult stakeholders. Good luck, I hope you and your project are successful!<\/p>\n<h2><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">Psoda plug<\/span><\/h2>\n<p>If you\u2019re looking for a tool to help you manage your stakeholder relationships, then look no further than Psoda. You can sign up for a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.psoda.com\/global\/schedule-a-demo\/\">free personalised demo<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Welcome to the latest &#8220;Ask a project manager&#8221; blog. This week\u2019s question is about coping with difficult stakeholders: I\u2019ve just been given a project that, in all honesty, will make or break my career. It\u2019s a fantastic opportunity but, and it\u2019s a big but, the stakeholders are horrendous! They all want completely different things, they <a href=\"https:\/\/www.psoda.com\/global\/2019\/08\/06\/help-my-stakeholders-want-me-to-fail\/\" class=\"more-link\">&#8230;<span class=\"screen-reader-text\">  Help! My stakeholders want me to fail<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":17799,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13502","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ask-a-project-manager","category-project-management"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.0 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Ask a PM: My stakeholders want me to fail! | Psoda<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"This week&#039;s question in our ask a PM series is how do you manage difficult stakeholders. Read on for our tips on how to get around this issue.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.psoda.com\/global\/2019\/08\/06\/help-my-stakeholders-want-me-to-fail\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Ask a PM: My stakeholders want me to fail! | Psoda\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"This week&#039;s question in our ask a PM series is how do you manage difficult stakeholders. Read on for our tips on how to get around this issue.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.psoda.com\/global\/2019\/08\/06\/help-my-stakeholders-want-me-to-fail\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Enterprise portfolio, programme and project management software\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2019-08-06T03:52:01+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2025-07-03T01:49:44+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.psoda.com\/global\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/Ask-a-project-manager-I-want-to-be-a-project-manager.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1280\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"903\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Rhona\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Rhona\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.psoda.com\/global\/2019\/08\/06\/help-my-stakeholders-want-me-to-fail\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.psoda.com\/global\/2019\/08\/06\/help-my-stakeholders-want-me-to-fail\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Rhona\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.psoda.com\/global\/#\/schema\/person\/6fb5a9c94059d0ddb4c05ebd3965f81a\"},\"headline\":\"Help! My stakeholders want me to fail\",\"datePublished\":\"2019-08-06T03:52:01+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2025-07-03T01:49:44+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.psoda.com\/global\/2019\/08\/06\/help-my-stakeholders-want-me-to-fail\/\"},\"wordCount\":863,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.psoda.com\/global\/2019\/08\/06\/help-my-stakeholders-want-me-to-fail\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.psoda.com\/global\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/Ask-a-project-manager-I-want-to-be-a-project-manager.jpg\",\"articleSection\":[\"Ask a project manager\",\"Project management\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-NZ\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.psoda.com\/global\/2019\/08\/06\/help-my-stakeholders-want-me-to-fail\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.psoda.com\/global\/2019\/08\/06\/help-my-stakeholders-want-me-to-fail\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.psoda.com\/global\/2019\/08\/06\/help-my-stakeholders-want-me-to-fail\/\",\"name\":\"Ask a PM: My stakeholders want me to fail! | Psoda\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.psoda.com\/global\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.psoda.com\/global\/2019\/08\/06\/help-my-stakeholders-want-me-to-fail\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.psoda.com\/global\/2019\/08\/06\/help-my-stakeholders-want-me-to-fail\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.psoda.com\/global\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/Ask-a-project-manager-I-want-to-be-a-project-manager.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2019-08-06T03:52:01+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2025-07-03T01:49:44+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.psoda.com\/global\/#\/schema\/person\/6fb5a9c94059d0ddb4c05ebd3965f81a\"},\"description\":\"This week's question in our ask a PM series is how do you manage difficult stakeholders. Read on for our tips on how to get around this issue.\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.psoda.com\/global\/2019\/08\/06\/help-my-stakeholders-want-me-to-fail\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-NZ\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.psoda.com\/global\/2019\/08\/06\/help-my-stakeholders-want-me-to-fail\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-NZ\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.psoda.com\/global\/2019\/08\/06\/help-my-stakeholders-want-me-to-fail\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.psoda.com\/global\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/Ask-a-project-manager-I-want-to-be-a-project-manager.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.psoda.com\/global\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/Ask-a-project-manager-I-want-to-be-a-project-manager.jpg\",\"width\":1280,\"height\":903,\"caption\":\"Speech bubbles with who, what, why, where, when and how\"},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.psoda.com\/global\/2019\/08\/06\/help-my-stakeholders-want-me-to-fail\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.psoda.com\/global\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Help! My stakeholders want me to fail\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.psoda.com\/global\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.psoda.com\/global\/\",\"name\":\"Enterprise portfolio, programme and project management software\",\"description\":\"\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.psoda.com\/global\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-NZ\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.psoda.com\/global\/#\/schema\/person\/6fb5a9c94059d0ddb4c05ebd3965f81a\",\"name\":\"Rhona\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Ask a PM: My stakeholders want me to fail! | Psoda","description":"This week's question in our ask a PM series is how do you manage difficult stakeholders. Read on for our tips on how to get around this issue.","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.psoda.com\/global\/2019\/08\/06\/help-my-stakeholders-want-me-to-fail\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Ask a PM: My stakeholders want me to fail! | Psoda","og_description":"This week's question in our ask a PM series is how do you manage difficult stakeholders. Read on for our tips on how to get around this issue.","og_url":"https:\/\/www.psoda.com\/global\/2019\/08\/06\/help-my-stakeholders-want-me-to-fail\/","og_site_name":"Enterprise portfolio, programme and project management software","article_published_time":"2019-08-06T03:52:01+00:00","article_modified_time":"2025-07-03T01:49:44+00:00","og_image":[{"width":1280,"height":903,"url":"https:\/\/www.psoda.com\/global\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/Ask-a-project-manager-I-want-to-be-a-project-manager.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Rhona","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Rhona","Est. reading time":"4 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/www.psoda.com\/global\/2019\/08\/06\/help-my-stakeholders-want-me-to-fail\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.psoda.com\/global\/2019\/08\/06\/help-my-stakeholders-want-me-to-fail\/"},"author":{"name":"Rhona","@id":"https:\/\/www.psoda.com\/global\/#\/schema\/person\/6fb5a9c94059d0ddb4c05ebd3965f81a"},"headline":"Help! My stakeholders want me to fail","datePublished":"2019-08-06T03:52:01+00:00","dateModified":"2025-07-03T01:49:44+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.psoda.com\/global\/2019\/08\/06\/help-my-stakeholders-want-me-to-fail\/"},"wordCount":863,"commentCount":0,"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.psoda.com\/global\/2019\/08\/06\/help-my-stakeholders-want-me-to-fail\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.psoda.com\/global\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/Ask-a-project-manager-I-want-to-be-a-project-manager.jpg","articleSection":["Ask a project manager","Project management"],"inLanguage":"en-NZ","potentialAction":[{"@type":"CommentAction","name":"Comment","target":["https:\/\/www.psoda.com\/global\/2019\/08\/06\/help-my-stakeholders-want-me-to-fail\/#respond"]}]},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.psoda.com\/global\/2019\/08\/06\/help-my-stakeholders-want-me-to-fail\/","url":"https:\/\/www.psoda.com\/global\/2019\/08\/06\/help-my-stakeholders-want-me-to-fail\/","name":"Ask a PM: My stakeholders want me to fail! | Psoda","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.psoda.com\/global\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.psoda.com\/global\/2019\/08\/06\/help-my-stakeholders-want-me-to-fail\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.psoda.com\/global\/2019\/08\/06\/help-my-stakeholders-want-me-to-fail\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.psoda.com\/global\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/Ask-a-project-manager-I-want-to-be-a-project-manager.jpg","datePublished":"2019-08-06T03:52:01+00:00","dateModified":"2025-07-03T01:49:44+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.psoda.com\/global\/#\/schema\/person\/6fb5a9c94059d0ddb4c05ebd3965f81a"},"description":"This week's question in our ask a PM series is how do you manage difficult stakeholders. Read on for our tips on how to get around this issue.","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.psoda.com\/global\/2019\/08\/06\/help-my-stakeholders-want-me-to-fail\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-NZ","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.psoda.com\/global\/2019\/08\/06\/help-my-stakeholders-want-me-to-fail\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-NZ","@id":"https:\/\/www.psoda.com\/global\/2019\/08\/06\/help-my-stakeholders-want-me-to-fail\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/www.psoda.com\/global\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/Ask-a-project-manager-I-want-to-be-a-project-manager.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.psoda.com\/global\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/Ask-a-project-manager-I-want-to-be-a-project-manager.jpg","width":1280,"height":903,"caption":"Speech bubbles with who, what, why, where, when and how"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.psoda.com\/global\/2019\/08\/06\/help-my-stakeholders-want-me-to-fail\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.psoda.com\/global\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Help! My stakeholders want me to fail"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.psoda.com\/global\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.psoda.com\/global\/","name":"Enterprise portfolio, programme and project management software","description":"","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.psoda.com\/global\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-NZ"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.psoda.com\/global\/#\/schema\/person\/6fb5a9c94059d0ddb4c05ebd3965f81a","name":"Rhona"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.psoda.com\/global\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13502","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.psoda.com\/global\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.psoda.com\/global\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.psoda.com\/global\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.psoda.com\/global\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13502"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.psoda.com\/global\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13502\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26124,"href":"https:\/\/www.psoda.com\/global\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13502\/revisions\/26124"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.psoda.com\/global\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17799"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.psoda.com\/global\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13502"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.psoda.com\/global\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13502"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.psoda.com\/global\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13502"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}