The Stakeholder Who Can Stop It Quietly
A logistics firm is replacing its warehouse management system. The programme sponsor is the COO, an enthusiastic supporter. The operations manager for the largest site (40% of throughput) has been consulted twice, gave neutral responses, and has not attended the last three workshops. Her team's pick rates are the best in the network and she has publicly said the current system 'works fine'. The warehouse staff union representative has raised concerns about scan-based productivity monitoring. The IT director controls the integration budget and has asked for a formal architecture review, which will add four weeks. The project manager has classified the operations manager as 'low influence, low interest' and plans to manage her by exception.
1. Critique the project manager's stakeholder classification and propose a better approach for the operations manager.
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The classification is wrong on both axes.
- Influence is high, not low. She runs 40% of throughput. Any go-live that disrupts her site threatens the whole programme's benefits. She can also withhold the process knowledge the design depends on.
- Interest is high, not low. Neutrality plus non-attendance plus a public 'works fine' comment is not disinterest; it is unvoiced opposition or unaddressed concern. Absence from workshops is a signal, not a data point for 'low interest'.
Better approach:
- Reclassify as high influence / high interest (key player).
- Meet her individually, off the record, and ask what she thinks will break. Her pick-rate performance means she has credible operational knowledge; treat her as a design authority, not a recipient of communications.
- Find her actual concern - likely disruption to a high-performing site, or loss of local discretion - and address it in the design or the transition plan.
- Give her a named role (site design lead or pilot site) so her expertise is used and her opposition becomes ownership.
Managing her 'by exception' would let a blocker sit unengaged until go-live.
2. The union and IT director represent different kinds of stakeholder risk. Explain how you would handle each and why the tactics differ.
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They differ in the nature of their power and the legitimacy of their concern.
Union representative: power is collective and can escalate to industrial action or reputational damage. The concern - scan-based monitoring - is a legitimate employee-relations issue, not a technical objection. Handle through early, honest engagement: consult on what data is collected, who sees it, retention, and whether it feeds individual performance management. Consider whether the monitoring is actually required for the business objective; if it is a by-product, scope it out. Document agreements. This is a consent-building exercise.
IT director: power is budgetary and procedural. The architecture review request is legitimate governance, and refusing it creates a later veto. Handle by negotiating the review's scope and timing: agree the questions it must answer, run it in parallel with design rather than sequentially, and agree a decision date. This is a scheduling and scope negotiation.
Treating both as 'communications' would fail. One needs substantive concessions; the other needs a governed process with a date.