Stakeholder management

Introduction

Stakeholder management is one of the most important activities during the entire automation journey. Involving stakeholders in decisions and plans have shown to be a clear success factor and a fundamental prerequisite for a efficient and effective automation practice.

The Automation group and its external interfaces

It is central to optimize the work within the Automation Group but it also vital to understand and manage interfaces towards other stakeholders and organizations.

Stakeholder groups and their commitment levels

Understanding what commitment level a certain stakeholder should reach is key for both understanding what effort level that is needed but also what type of effort (communication, meetings, workshops, etc.) that is required. Below is a conceptual picture showing the mentioned stakeholders mapped into the commitment curve

Structuring the management of stakeholders according to a commitment curve has shown to be powerful, both for the team driving the change but also for the stakeholder to understand the expectations. The Automation group has many stakeholders with different engagement levels and it is therefore important to address them individually and accordingly.

Level 1 - Awareness

The first level, awareness, basically means that the targeted group has been informed. Basic communication activities (e-mails, meetings, etc.) normally fulfils this commitment level.

Level 2 - Understanding

Understand is the second step an requires the receiver to actually understand the message. It is not the same as agreeing with the message. A stakeholder that has reached the understanding level has enough knowledge, insight and behaviour to not work against the purpose.

Level 3 - Acceptance

Acceptance is the third step and at this point the stakeholder actually agrees with the statement. These stakeholders will work actively to reach the target.

Level 4 - Commitment

The last step, commitment, refers to stakeholders that are committed to the change. What distinguish them from the acceptance stage is that they actively will promote the initiative to others. They have at this point become ambassadors and show that they actively support the initiative.

Stakeholder mapping with RACI Matrix (Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, Informed)

Identifying all relevant stakeholders, their responsibility and why they could be important to keep informed/involved is a good start when it comes to stakeholders management. A very useful model to use t is the RACI Matrix. The purpose of using a RACI matrix is to, in a structured way, map all relevant stakeholders, their responsibility and to what level they need to be involved.

Illustrative RACI matrix

Stakeholder power map

Power maps is a good way to get an overview of they current situation with important stakeholders. Understanding the level of current engagement could help understand what and where more communication is needed as well as what relationships that need to get stronger. It is central to have an Automation Director who understands the importance of stakeholder management and the drive to do actively engage with stakeholders to ease the implementation of network automation.

Best practices

Socialize and agree on the scope with all affected stakeholders and make sure they understand the limitations, value and the aim with the use case(s)
Make sure to get management buy-in and sponsorship on the scope
Identify internal stakeholders that will be affected in the deployment phase – they should continuously see progress and demos
Get stakeholder buy-in on the expected outcome
Use demos as an internal communication activities to create wider awareness
Keep all stakeholders involved and engaged in the process towards automation

Checklist

Map all stakeholders that could/will have affect during the network automation journey
It is clear to all stakeholders what a successful deployment of the defined use case will accomplish
Continuously show demos to all internal stakeholders and gather their comments and feedback