A stakeholder meeting is crucial for introducing stakeholders to one another, garnering commitment to usability, and outlining usability targets based on business objectives. It is also an approach for gathering information about the system's purpose and the broader use context from domain and technical specialists.
An organization's stakeholders include people who have a vested interest in all of the company's choices. When updating core assets, such as an organization's website, the engagement of stakeholders may make or break your project.
Stakeholder meetings are critical for aligning the feedback of these key people. Anyone who is actively involved in the project should attend the stakeholder meeting. Assume your app is introducing new functionality. In such a situation, everyone involved in its creation, funding, and promotion must be kept informed.
Types of Stakeholder Meetings
Different sorts of stakeholders may be involved in your initiatives. On the other hand, meetings with all of these stakeholders are a little easier to categorize. The following are some popular forms of stakeholder meetings.
Kick-off Meetings
A kick-off meeting determines your project's purpose, goals, scope, timeframe, and roles. Involving stakeholders in this meeting is a smart way to set expectations.
Stakeholder Interviews
Following a successful start meeting, stakeholder interviews are conducted. These one-on-one interviews with stakeholders can help you comprehend the project's vision. Your interview encounter can provide significant insights and answers to various problems.
Additional Stakeholder Meetings
A lot may happen as a project progresses forward. These modifications may necessitate meetings. Any meetings between the interviews and the project's conclusion are classified as "extra meetings."
How to Organize a Stakeholder Meeting
Managing stakeholders is essential to finishing a project on time and fulfilling expectations. Stakeholder analysis helps you meet those expectations and complete projects on time by identifying individuals, groups, and organizations vested in a program or process.
Things to Do Before a Stakeholder Meeting
- Stakeholder analysis - Prioritize stakeholders based on their importance on a project and strive to understand how best to interface with them during the project's life. Completing a stakeholder analysis aims to help you align and communicate better with your stakeholders.
- Obtain the attendance list: Obtaining the expected participant list is critical before a stakeholder meeting. Try to interact with stakeholders and receive confirmations of their presence, then prepare using that list, making arrangements for those who will be missing.
- Establish meeting agenda: Establishing and creating the meeting agenda is critical. This should be made available to everyone before the meeting begins. Yes, sessions run late, but understanding the general flow and expectations can help you know how to handle refreshments, breaks, and other floating pieces.
- Know the meeting location: The meeting location should be planned. Whether virtual, physical, or both, proper measures should be implemented to ensure a smooth meeting.
- Consider potential obstacles: Plan your meeting with potential difficulties in mind and know how to overcome them.
Things to do During a Stakeholder Meeting
- Display roadmaps and brainstorm - Provide a visual representation of project specifics to keep stakeholders informed. Instead of a note taker or someone writing on a whiteboard, you might allow people to submit their opinions to a SWOT analysis.
- Get comments during meetings - Attendees can offer their comments before the conclusion of the meeting. They may change slides on the fly and submit comments for fast response.
- Assign tasks, Roles, and activities: During the meeting, strive to obtain active involvement by not doing all of the talking.
Things to Do After a Stakeholder Meeting
Not sure how to make the best use of your meetings? The time you spend following a meeting is more vital to your success than you may know, and you should not waste a minute of it. Here are certain acts that are necessary for optimum productivity.
- Collate feedback: Make sure you gather feedback from the stakeholders in attendance. This will assist in understanding their perspective on various issues and will aid in the preparation of future sessions.
- Meeting summary: Your notes should record the meeting's discourse and all important agreements reached. When you distribute a meeting summary, participants and non-attendees have a record of what happened and what will be done in the future. Sharing meeting notes lets people who were unable to attend the meeting feel involved and educates everyone on what needs to be done.
- Always maintain contact by responding to emails and phone calls and asking inquiries as required. Communicate with your team members and let them know you're accessible to assist them if they need it.
An Efficient Tool for Stakeholder Meetings - Boardmix
Collaboration software will play an essential role in bringing cross-functional teams together, whether working in the office, at home, or on the move.
Improve brainstorming sessions with Boardmix, a virtual whiteboarding application. Boardmix enables cross-functional team members to use their positive experiences by visualizing their ideas in a single shared environment. Use Boardmix to increase team decision-making, reach agreements faster, and keep everyone on the same page.
With Boardmix, you can prepare for stakeholder meetings by bringing all stakeholders on board, creating an agenda, and distributing required information to everyone ahead of time. This will provide stakeholders with an idea of what will be discussed.
Boardmix is an excellent tool for sharing visual presentations and thoughts during meetings. Boardmix is available online and thus sets no limit on devices, making it simple and easier to get guests actively participate in the discussion.
Collaboration does not end with meetings, and post-meeting events are crucial. Even after meetings have concluded, you may still obtain critical input from stakeholders that will benefit the organization. Boardmix allows you to produce and preserve meeting summaries for future use and for those who are absent. You will be headed for productivity and success when you properly use Boardmix immediately following crucial business talks.
Boardmix also provides templates for meeting agendas, icebreakers, retrospectives, and brainstorming sessions, among other things. Just try it right now!
