AMA: Deel Team Lead, Salesforce Development, Bridget Hudacs on Stakeholder Management

First, when I look at ownership, I look at “who is accountable for the success of the solution?” If there is a conflict, I ask a few questions of the group to determine ownership: What is the problem we’re trying to solve? Who is most directly impacted by the outcome of the decision being made? Who is the CEO going to call if the solution goes sideways? For example, when streamlining a manual process for sales, there are several problems to solve: Identify the important information to capture in ...Read More

Whenever possible, have all stakeholders in a scoping meeting to agree on the project fundamentals: What is the problem that we're trying to solve? What is in-scope for developing the solution? What is out-of-scope? What are timelines for delivery? Who is responsible for various aspects of the project - and what are the agreed delivery dates for those elements? These elements are documented and put in a centralized place. They're referenced at every follow up meeting. And, if there are adjustmen ...Read More

I typically defuse tense relationships with clear communication and a little humor. For background: I've inherited historically tense relationships and, in listening to the complaints or assumptions made by the function, identified the issues that require increased communication. These issues are almost always related to actions by my team that increase work for their teams or reduce visibility into areas where their team has oversight. Once those sticking points are identified, I make it a poin ...Read More

Work with a sense of urgency. If a project can be completed quickly (no downstream impacts), then get it done. Those little projects build a lot of goodwill. Communicate clearly and often. Perhaps that's weekly or monthly meetings to align on current/future projects. In addition to touch-base meetings, I like to use Confluence dashboards to show where a function's work is in-progress so those stakeholders have a centralized place to get simple questions answered. Don't play favorites. Any stakeh ...Read More

Value Stream Mapping, especially documenting the current state, is an invaluable tool to identify key stakeholders for the project and to see the work required to create the future state. Once key stakeholders are identified and the current and future states are mapped, hold a scoping meeting with all stakeholders (functional and technical). Document the decisions related to in-scope and out-of-scope elements for the current timeline. Identify who is responsible for the in-scope elements and the ...Read More

Agree on the in-scope and out-of-scope elements for the project with the key stakeholders. Set clear responsibilities and timelines for in-scope project outcomes. Identify dependencies so the team knows how adjustments to timeline impact the project as a whole. Set up a regular communication cadence related to the project (ie weekly updates) to ensure that deadlines are met and expectations are managed. Hold the team accountable for communicating and completing their areas of responsibility. Stu ...Read More