How do you deal with difficult stakeholders?

Managing stakeholders is really a great aspect for a business analyst. A project’s success or failure is largely dependent on the project’s stakeholders. So it is very important for a BA to manage and impress the stakeholders. This may become very difficult it the stakeholders are difficult people.

There are many ways to manage your stakeholders depending on their roles and influence on the project. Some of them are:

1. Being patient, nice and diplomatic is one of the important characteristics for any Business Analyst to deal with difficult stakeholders. Whatever the issue or decision you take your stakeholders don’t like, try to convince them or let them give a better solution or remove the defects in your decision.
2. Never take things personally because there might be a reason for a stakeholder to be aggressive. So always try to find the issue and don’t take anything personally.
3. Always try to convince them that you are on their side because they need to believe that you are their guy and will help from their end.
4. problems cannot be solved if you are a nice guy. You need to work on the real problems and fulfill the word you gave them by doing in action. Nobody accepts the problems because you are only nice to them and not solving the problems.
5. Some stakeholders don’t accept the changes because they don’t want to get out of their comfort zones. They don’t give you correct feedback and are hesitant to changes. There you need to prove them wrong by taking statistics.
6. Some stakeholders don’ accept changes and for them, success stories work better. Tell them hoe other stakeholders accepted the same and how that is very important for them to accept.
7. constant communication is very important because you need to make them feel that they are the part of the project and any risks or changes in the project need to be acknowledged to them so that they believe the reason is valid later.
8. There is not much difference between stakeholder management and a salesman selling a product to his customer. You need to boost their confidence and make them agree to your words. You need to be motivational and assertive