Internal Stakeholder Management

STEP 1. Internal Notice

Create an internal memorandum outlining the 30,000-foot breadth of the project and distribute it to all business units, challenging them to be a part of the project, or miss out on the opportunity to meaningfully contribute.

STEP 2. Intelligence Gathering

Conduct interviews with high-value users across functional departments. Develop a similar interview framework so that expectations and results are easy to categorize and prioritize.

TIP: Ensuring a well-defined story or ‘why’ the requirement has been included is beneficial, both for the team’s understanding as well as the vendor’s.

TIP: Maximum transparency among internal stakeholders is key (eg. ops, IT, marketing, etc.). Collaborative decision-making throughout the project lifecycle yields more long-term company-wide consensus.

STEP 3. Business Unit Buy-In

Each business unit should conduct an internal session to identify additional areas that may benefit, either in reducing current friction/challenges or by adding features/functions, to existing processes.

Select one or two people from each relevant department as representatives on the selection/evaluation committee.

If you have franchisees, involve them in this process. It’s not necessary to include all, but ideally everyone should have some representation.

Determine how your customers, franchisees, or vendors may use this system.

Conduct your own ROI analysis. Do not depend on a vendor to do this for you.

STEP 4. Requirements & Scope

While defining requirements, ensure stakeholders consider both functional requirements and the outcome they’d like to achieve. Outcomes are open to vendor interpretation, but are more indicative of actual system operation than specific functionality.