Our fourth guest was Chloe Amos-Edkins, Research Director of Studio intO – an innovation consultancy that works across the world developing strategies for companies like Uber, Skyscanner, and Nike. Chloe shared intO’s stakeholder engagement framework which is used for building outstanding stakeholder relationships. See the highlights from the session below and watch the full webinar on our YouTube Channel.
Before we unpack the framework, here are some definitions used throughout the framework:
🟡 Client: A customer, buyer or receiver of goods, services or advice.
🟡 Stakeholder: The people who have something to gain (or lose) from your project's outcome.
Do your homework upfront: harvesting existing insights and secondary sources of information. This phase involves the least amount of interaction with stakeholders. The more you can find out about the business you are working with before starting the project, the better.
Assess the wider business context.
🟡 Use desk research to get up to speed with the business you’re working with: Are they struggling? Are they expanding? Have they received a huge investment recently?
Map your stakeholders
🟡 Map stakeholder insights with Miro. Once you find out about the business, map the different behaviours of your stakeholders: What is their motivation? How influential are they for the business? Do they support your research goals?
Unify on project objectives & scope
🟡 Book a kickoff meeting. Ensure you and your stakeholders are on the same page with project objectives and are shared clearly with the rest of the team.
Empathy can be a very powerful tool before, doing, and after a project. To help you understand your stakeholder's real challenges and get to know them on a more personal level. Therefore, understanding what they are trying to achieve.
Understand the business challenge
🟡 Conduct ‘knowledge share’ meetings. For intO, this is a half-day collaborative workshop where all stakeholders share ideas, concerns, or any existing data that may influence the project.
Understand aims and objectives
🟡 Set up ‘stakeholder interviews’ where you can observe how stakeholders discuss their aims and objectives.
Understand their hopes and fears
🟡 Different stakeholders may have their own personal agendas for the project: they might be new to the business and want to make their mark with the project.
Make them feel heard
🟡 Show that you are open and willing to listen goes a long way. Try listening more than you speak. The stakeholders are the experts on the business who know what is going on.
In the past, there has been a more guarded approach to stakeholders. Really, collaboration is key. The more you get stakeholders involved in the field work, synthesis, and decision-making within research projects, the more they understand the value it brings to their business.
Build trust
🟡 Make stakeholders feel part of the design research process and make them understand what you are trying to achieve. Invite them to customer interviews to take their own notes and share ideas.
Demystify the process
🟡 Be transparent about how you work and the methods you are using to conduct research.
Incorporate their knowledge
🟡 Always refer back to stakeholder insights to boost your research. Utilise them as much as possible. You might be limited to how much time you can spend with stakeholders.
4. Communicate
Great communication is vital to avoid any confusion or delay in the research project. Also, ensuring that both research team and company stakeholders are aligned.
Foster transparency
🟡 Always be open and encourage dialogue between you and stakeholders.
Course correction
🟡 Plans change when new insights are gathered in a research project. Adapt your direction and make sure stakeholders are onboard and aware of these developments.
Build anticipation
🟡 Drip feed inspiration and information to stakeholders as go to maintain an open dialogue. This could be sending an email with an insightful video clip from a customer interview.
Predictable interaction
🟡 Set the cadence of how often and when you are going to interact with stakeholders.
Unfortunately, the browser you use is outdated and does not allow you to display the site correctly. Please install any of the modern browsers, for example:
Google Chrome Firefox Safari