As a project manager, you are going to be communicating with different people all of the time, and you are going to be tasked with satisfying everyone’s requirements and ensuring they understand the changes taking place. This can sometimes be difficult to do, but it is important to be able to deal effectively with stakeholders. So let’s take a look at stakeholder relationships and how you can perfect them. This will help you become the best project manager you can be.
Make sure you are in a state of continual improvement
To be successful as a project manager, you need to be someone who is constantly looking for ways to improve services, products, customer satisfaction levels, and processes. If you are, this will be evident in your deliverables and your behaviour. Stakeholders will appreciate this, especially considering they are going to be the recipients of your efforts. Clients want to work with people that are committed to doing more so they can achieve more.
Consider taking a project management training course
It does not matter how long you have been involved in project management, whether you are just starting out or you’ve been there a while, a project management training course can help you to achieve more. Project management courses are not only designed for beginners; there are those catered to professionals that are simply looking to expand their knowledge and boost their career such as the coveted APM Registered Project Professional (APM RPP). Training is a great way to refresh your knowledge and learn some new skills that can help you when building stakeholder relationships.
Remain transparent
Transparency and honesty are vital ingredients when you are communicating with and building stakeholder relationships as with any role in life. Most clients are more reasonable than people give them credit for. If you hide the truth because you are worried about the client being disappointed, they are only going to be more disappointed when they find out that you have lied. No project is perfect – things do go wrong on projects, and stakeholders will recognise this. If you are honest, they will know they can trust you, and it makes for a great ongoing relationship.
Maintain clear and regular communication
Finally, communicating with your stakeholders regularly will instil confidence and ensure that you are both on the same page; the importance of good communication on projects cannot be reiterated enough. Radio silence is only going to lead your stakeholders to believe that something is going wrong. Not only do you need to communicate regularly, but you need to be clear too. Keep things simple and straight to the point so there is no potential for ambiguity.
So there you have it: some quick tips to help you with perfecting stakeholder relationships so that every project can run as smoothly as possible. If you are to build a good rapport with all of your stakeholders, you need to communicate clearly and regularly. If you do this, you are bound to keep your stakeholders satisfied.
