As the Product Owner, you need to find ways to engage with stakeholders. The Stakeholder Engagement Cycle gives you a framework for this. 

Here are the key stages of the MSP Engagement Cycle which is a good example to use. As a ‘cycle’ the process is iterative with assessment points and feedback loops at each stage as the stakeholder analysis and relationships develop.  

Let’s take a look at each stage and see what you need to do to effectively and sustainably build your engagement strategy. 

Defining the stakeholder engagement strategy 

This describes ‘how’ you’re going to go about the communication. It’s not an artefact of Scrum but should be prepared by the Product Owner as part of their ongoing communication responsibilities before the Product Backlog’s created – if you haven’t properly considered the stakeholders then it’s impossible for you to understand their requirements or define a Product vision in line with the organization’s strategy. 

After the stakeholder engagement strategy is defined, the other steps in the stakeholder engagement cycle follow the Deming ‘plan-do-check-act’ cycle by going through the five sequential steps of Identify; Analyze; Plan; Engage; and Measure.  

Identifying stakeholders 

You’ve probably worked out that, before you can do anything, you’ve got to establish who your stakeholders are. They need to include the people who are involved in the Scrum Team’s work and its outcome, and the stakeholders who are affected by it. 

Creating and analyzing stakeholder profiles 

This stage describes the ‘why’ and the ‘what’ using the Stakeholder Map and the Stakeholder Influence/Interest Matrix, which then form part of the Stakeholder Profile document.  

The Stakeholder Map will match all the stakeholders – or stakeholder groups – and all potential areas of interest to show you who is concerned with what. The Stakeholder Profile then provides the information you need about each stakeholder – things like:  

• Their areas of interest or concern and any areas of sensitivity;
• Their level of support for the product;
• Their level of influence on the product and why;
• Development trends that are relevant for the product;
• The current and target position for each stakeholder – through the Influence/Interest Matrix;
• A Benefits Distribution Matrix showing benefits and ‘dis-benefits’ for each stakeholder;
• Who owns the communications with each stakeholder; and
• The key influencers within the group. 

Planning the engagements 

This stage is about the ‘when’ which is visualized through the Communications Plan.  

For effective engagement you need to send the right message to each stakeholder, make it relevant to build trust, communicate at the right time and continually assess how effective the communication process is. 

Engaging stakeholders 

So far, you’ve identified, created and analyzed – this stage is where you actually engage with the stakeholders by executing the Communications Plan.  

But, it’s about more than the formal, planned activities. Subtle and informal communication will also be part of the mix and you’ll often need to influence, lobby, cajole, manipulate, co-opt, flatter and apply pressure to your stakeholders to keep the programme on track.  

Measuring effectiveness 

The last step in the cycle is measuring the effectiveness of your approach – which is only worthwhile if you’re prepared to objectively review the results and make adjustments to the engagement strategy where they’re needed. 

An independent review of your stakeholders’ perceptions can be a good place to start, as well as health checks or reviews of the effectiveness of the documentation you’ve used. 

And then the cycle starts all over again!