Tips for Aligning Stakeholders and Testing Assumptions

Three things I say regularly to help drive alignment with stakeholders across teams… 1. “Begin with the end in mind” What do you want you reports to look like? How would you ideally want to see your business unit measured? Having trouble thinking about that? Then: 2. “Have a hypothesis for your GTM” You don’t need to have the “right” way to GTM. Driving alignment can be about a test you want to run. The test, is about your hypothesis for your GTM activity. If you create that with your team, you’ll drive alignment. Struggling with what the hypothesis should be? Then… 3. “Aim small, miss small” - I definitely borrowed this from a movie. 😅 Your hypothesis can be really simple and should be based on your ICP while incorporating some level of your GTM plan. Your GTM plan is either based on marketing/selling a specific product or service or about testing the vehicles to market/sell your products and services. Product/Service Hypothesis Example: “We believe selling product/service ‘A’ to {{this ONE industry}}, to the {{Mid Market, Enterprise, SMB (pick one)}} to these {{role level/persona}} professionals will yield pipeline and closed won deals.” Vehicle Hypothesis Example: “We know selling product/service ‘A’ in {{industry vertical(s)}}, at the {{company sizes}} to these {{roles/personas}} professionals works. Now our team believes {{webinars/field events/paid ads/influencer campaigns (pick one)}} about will yield pipeline and closed won deals.” Go through these as a GTM team. As you are all collectively thinking about the end results you want to see, and creating a hypothesis that is as focused as possible; you will not only get aligned, you also will have some fun watching for the results. Also (and perhaps most importantly 😆) your Marketing Ops team will love you because you’ve dramatically reduced the cognitive load and helped them understand the data that will need to be captured/measured and the tech that might be needed to support your GTM hypothesis! What do you think? How do you approach alignment? #marketingops #marketingandsalesalignment #marketing #marketingoperations

I feel like I've started to sound like a broken record, continually telling folks to solve for the problem, not the discomfort.  What do I mean by that? Not everyone sits in a role or team that can see the "big picture" or the dependencies involved around an issue. It's our job to gather business requirements and conduct root cause analysis to determine what the right solution for the business problem is.  Remember, we barely have enough time to do it once, let alone have to go back and redo a second or third time because we solved for the discomfort instead of the problem. With that in mind, here are my 5 reasons you need to know the problem to solve it: 1) Avoid Ineffective Solutions: Jumping straight to a solution without fully understanding the root causes of the problem can lead to ineffective or incomplete solutions. The solution may address surface-level symptoms but fail to resolve the underlying issues. 2) Align Perspectives: Different stakeholders might have varying views on the core problem. By exploring the problem collaboratively first, you can get alignment on the true nature of the challenge before proposing solutions. 3) Encourage Creativity: Coming with a preconceived solution can limit your thinking and blind you to better alternatives. An open exploration of the problem fosters a creative environment where more innovative and effective ideas can emerge. 4) Avoid Overconfidence: Proposing a solution before understanding the problem comes across as presumptuous. It signals you may not fully appreciate the nuances and complexities involved from others' viewpoints, causing defensiveness and resistance. 5) Build Stakeholder Buy-In: Defining the problem collaboratively ensures stakeholders feel heard and involved. They are more likely to support solutions they helped shape from the outset. #ProcessImprovement #LearningAndDevelopment #BusinessRequirements #CriticalThinking

Agile Secret! Two Ways to Assure Stakeholder Alignment There are exactly two ways to assure stakeholder alignment: 1) Before you deliver something 2) After you deliver something The first way is called "alignment by design." You invest time understanding needs, setting expectations, getting feedback early, validating assumptions, and shaping the solution with your stakeholders. Now, in fairness, it takes longer up front. It’s slower to start. It requires conversations, not just updates. But when you finally deliver, the reaction is more likely to be. "Yes! This is exactly what we needed." The second way is called "alignment by surprise." You skip the upfront friction. You assume understanding. You present a finished solution, fully baked and ready to go. And then you find out what they really think. It’s usually faster to build, but always riskier to deploy. And the reaction is usually: "Hmm… can we change this?" So, either way, you're getting alignment. The question is when - before, when it’s cheap to change, or after, when it’s not. Pick one. But don’t kid yourself. Alignment isn’t optional. Only the timing is.

“Unspoken expectations are premeditated resentments.” — Neil Strauss A friend of mine does a lot of marriage counseling. He shared this observation with me: “Most of the problems I see come down to missed expectations. Too often, those expectations were unspoken.” That's not just an issue in marriage relationships. It’s true with our stakeholders, too. There are expectations that something will be included in a project—or that it won’t be. It was never talked about—or at least, not clearly discussed. But the expectations remain. So much of project management comes down to managing the balance between expectations and reality. The more aligned stakeholder expectations are with the reality of what we’re delivering, the more likely the project is to be viewed by them as a success. What are some ways to maintain that balance? Here are some ideas from our Essentials of Project Management course: ✔️ Give more visibility to assumptions. Document them. Review them with stakeholders. Update them. Don't keep assumptions tucked away in your head. Pro tip: People say all the time: "Don't assume! You know what the word assume means, right?" That's terrible advice for projects. There are always assumptions. The problem is when they're overly optimistic or not communicated and considered. ✔️ Use exclusions to help stakeholders understand what they WON’T be getting. For the longest time, I chafed against documenting exclusions. If I didn’t tell someone they were going to get something, why should I have to tell them they aren’t? Because they make assumptions. Pro tip: Out-of-scopes don’t always mean "never." They might just mean they’re exclusions for the upcoming delivery. It’s okay for something to be out-of-scope for now but on the roadmap for later. ✔️ Have frequent check-ins. The frequency can depend on the project, but our experience shows that reality and expectations can start to diverge if your check-ins are more than two weeks apart. ✔️ Validate scope as it’s completed. In those check-ins, let your stakeholders see what’s been done. There’s nothing like actually seeing a deliverable to help a stakeholder understand if there's alignment with their expectations. ✔️ Increase trust with your stakeholders. As obvious as this may seem, it's worth being reminded that the dirty little secret of business is that everything is done on relationships. When there's trust, you're just checking in. When there's not, you're checking up. Understanding flows faster and more clearly when there's trust. 👉👉 What else would you add to this list? ------------------------------- “I thought my husband would ____________.” “I grew up in a house where my mom would _____________ so I assumed my wife would as well.” Yeah, that's a recipe for trouble. Marriage relationships can struggle because of missed and unstated expectations. So can projects. According to Neil Strauss, being more clear about expectations can avoid premeditated resentments.