A guide for understanding why and how to align stakeholders

Presented by Ankita Mukhopadhyay

INTRODUCTION 

The creation of every news product requires the effort and input of multiple stakeholders. It’s a symbiotic ecosystem where each team is dependent upon the other to guide the product toward success. Not surprisingly, an important part of the product management process is aligning stakeholders toward a common goal. Yet it’s one area in which most of us struggle. 

Stakeholder management is always a tricky area to navigate, and it can be especially daunting in an environment where product is a relatively new function. The rise of new roles in journalism means that some editorial roles in newsrooms overlap with product functions, and some product functions overlap with both tech and editorial roles. This can create an environment of conflict, but if managed well, it can also help boost innovation and creativity. 

What many product managers – new and veteran – forget during this process is that stakeholder management is quite simply relationship building. Strong relationships with stakeholders throughout the newsroom are beneficial not just in the short term, but also in the long term, as we seek buy-in from stakeholders for any project we undertake in the newsroom. Managing stakeholders effectively boosts innovation, saves time, and creates opportunities to foster new ideas. Managing stakeholders can also help you to:

• Prioritize tasks effectively

• Align the team towards a common product goal

• Increase the value of your product

• Solve problems faster

Journalists are naturally equipped with collaboration skills, as each story they write requires collaboration at multiple levels – from editors to interactive to business. This guide for product managers working in journalism offers strategies to get started with stakeholder management, ongoing stakeholder management, and how to step in to manage conflict.

IN PRACTICE

Use the tips and concepts in this section to cultivate a product culture in your newsroom

Identify your stakeholders and their level of interest

In product terms, a stakeholder is someone who has an interest in a product and will likely be affected by its outcome. In news, the stakeholder isn’t just confined to the newsroom. Each step in the creation of a news product affects a stakeholder, and this stakeholder can be in tech, editorial, product, or the audience itself. 

To get started with stakeholder management, first identify your stakeholders and the interest of each stakeholder.  Understanding the types of stakeholders you will encounter and mapping out their importance level and alignment status can help you prioritize your level of effort accordingly:

A concerned stakeholder is important as the product directly affects their work. For example, editorial is a concerned stakeholder in any product being built for a newsroom. If a stakeholder is concerned and affected by the product, then it’s easier to align their interests towards the common goal.

A misinformed stakeholder is important and needs to be aligned to the goal because their lack of information or misunderstanding of product goals can create roadblocks while building and then launching the product. 

A supportive stakeholder can be put on the backburner and prioritized at a later stage because their natural support makes it easier to align them toward the product goals. On the other hand, an interfering stakeholder can create unnecessary roadblocks in the work, which is why one must prioritize aligning or gaining the support of other stakeholders before engaging the interfering stakeholder.

Align the stakeholder toward the value of the product

Alignment means that everyone involved with defining and building your product is on the same page. There are typically two types of alignment:

1. Value: This form of alignment is a mutually beneficial relationship where the stakeholder sees the value naturally and aligns themselves to the product goal

2. Force: In this form of alignment, the stakeholder has to forcefully align themselves owing to restrictions such as timeline, budget, etc.

Alignment is a necessary pillar in stakeholder management, and focusing stakeholders on value rather than through force will ensure that goals are met, while also strengthening relationships with your stakeholders.

Set expectations at the outset

A critical stakeholder management error that product managers often make is missing an opportunity to set expectations clearly and early with stakeholders. Stakeholders are invested in the product because it directly affects their work, but each stakeholder is invested at different levels of the product building process. To help set expectations with stakeholders at the outset, product managers can use what I have dubbed the WheHo framework:

The WheHo framework

What: What is the stakeholder’s level of involvement in the product?

Why: Why is the stakeholder invested in the product?

How: How does the product affect the stakeholder at this point of time?

What: What goals can I set for the stakeholder to follow during this process?

Why: Why are these goals important for the stakeholder?

How: How can the stakeholder follow these goals?

Use meetings to strengthen relationships

A significant part of stakeholder management involves meetings. Use these more productively to boost and strengthen relationships with stakeholders by taking every opportunity to re-align on product goals. 

Over time, product goals and progress toward them can get lost in multiple documents that are impossible for any stakeholder to review on a daily basis. One way to solve this challenge is by organizing a “goal documentation day,” where the product goals are documented in detail and discussed with every stakeholder to ensure alignment. A documentation day will not just save time, but it can also allow each stakeholder to give their buy-in throughout the product building process. 

TERMS

Definitions for product terms referenced in this guide are sourced from NPA’s crowd-sourced product glossary

Cross-functional team

A group of people from across departments with different functional expertise who collaborate to meet a shared goal, often breaking down silos, increasing efficiency, and improving the chance for success by bringing different perspectives together from the beginning.

DACI

A decision-making framework that includes a Driver (project leader), an Approver (person making the decision), Contributors (people whose expertise may be consulted in product development), and the Informed (stakeholders who are not directly connected with the product, but whose work might impacted by decisions).  

Dependency

A connection between two tasks that requires one to be completed before the other.

RELATED READINGS / RESOURCES

We Built a Collaborative Documentation Site. Deploy Your Own With the Push of a Button – The NYT Open Team

Making research and experimentation part of your development process - Product Kit

Chasing leads and herding cats: How journalism’s latest job title — partner manager — works in ProPublica’s newsroom – Nieman Lab

Ask your readers to help build your products – Nico Gendron

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Ankita Mukhopadhyay

Ankita Mukhopadhyay is a Product Manager at POLITICO, responsible for building consumer-facing products. She is a former reporter-turned-product manager and made the transition to news product while she was a graduate student at Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism. Prior to her current role, Ankita was a correspondent for Deutsche Welle (DW) and The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU). She has also received reporting grants from the Pulitzer Center for Crisis Reporting and the National Geographic Society.