Workshop – Stakeholder Management for Product People: The Most Important Skill Nobody Teaches

Summary

To get your product funded and staffed, to get your team and your stakeholders aligned, to keep your customers and your executive sponsors engaged — for your plan to have a chance, you have got to become the consummate leader.  In this workshop, Bruce McCarthy walks you through his process for gaining and maintaining alignment within your team, among your stakeholders, and across your organization.

Successful product leaders are:

  • Persuader – someone who understands their audience and homes in on the most relevant factors to influence a certain direction/decision
  • Translator – someone who speaks the languages of the customer, the business, and technology
  • Diplomat – someone who helps people see their own interest in collaboration
  • Cheerleader – someone who make everyone feel important and involved
  • Negotiator – someone who helps reconcile the irreconcilable
  • Therapist – someone who listens with a genuine desire to help
  • Poet – someone who paints a vivid picture of a future where we all benefit 

Bruce breaks down the science, so you can practice the art.

You will learn about and practice core skills for managing stakeholders:

  • How to conduct stakeholder interviews
  • How to facilitate a group decision
  • How to lead teams of engineers, designers, data scientists and others toward a common goal
  • How to conduct a stakeholder review session
  • How to communicate with stakeholders between meetings
  • How to understand your audience and anticipate their most important questions
  • How to gather input (even from your CEO) without giving away decision rights
  • How to identify the real power players in your organization
  • How to tell the difference between consensus and alignment (hint: one of these is impossible)
  • How to get alignment in 3.5 minutes
  • How to get people to convince themselves
  • How to say no while enhancing trust 
  • How to disagree without challenging authority
  • How to leverage input without voting or design by committee
  • How to publish a plan without making promises you can not keep

The Workshop

  • Each module has structured peer practice for key skills
  • Helpful videos that you can keep 
  • And a Stakeholder Template to make you a wizard

About the Speaker

Bruce McCarthy helps growing organizations achieve their product visions through consulting, workshops, coaching, and speaking at events around the world. Bruce co-wrote Product Roadmaps Relaunched: How to Set Direction while Embracing Uncertainty and opines regularly at his website ProductCulture.org.