Step 6: Engage the Stakeholders

From here on the project comes off the page. Until now we were preparing and documenting — and paper accepts anything, including a plan full of holes. Now you test, in practice, your ability to make things happen. And a project is made of people: the first step of execution is to secure the engagement of the stakeholders, starting with your team.

For your career: executing and engaging people is where leadership proves itself. The skills in this step — communication, negotiation and conflict management — are among the most asked about in interviews and promotions.

Start with the team because that is where you have the most influence — and because, if the other stakeholders do not recognize you as a good leader, they tend to question your ability to run the project and to create resistance. The reverse is also true: a leader who engages the team gains credibility with everyone.

Strategies to engage the team

No strategy works with everyone all the time — adapt it to your style and to your team. The ones that work best:

• Lead by example and build credibility. Consistency between what you say and what you do is the condition for trust — which takes a long time to earn and is lost in one small lie.
• Provide the necessary conditions (training, tools, equipment) and highlight the importance of each person’s work. You cannot demand a deadline without providing the conditions.
• Whoever executes should estimate. People commit more to deadlines they estimated themselves — when someone else estimates, excuses are left over.
• Motivate and bring the team together with simple actions (meetings, get-togethers) and show that you care about them as people.
• Get to know each individual and what motivates them — one formula for everybody creates resistance.
• In rare cases, the only way out is replacing the member whose interests are incompatible with the project — act fast so the team is not “contaminated”.

Worst practices (avoid these)

• Thinking more resources shorten the schedule. Training someone consumes your time and can create rework — “you cannot produce a baby in one month by getting nine women pregnant”.
• Thinking fear and pressure solve things. They bring results in the short term and grievances in the long term. “Drive out fear, so that everyone may work effectively” (Deming) — when people are afraid, they lie.
• Not looking for the cause of problems. Fixing the symptom without attacking the cause makes the problem come back (Pareto: 80% of the problems come from 20% of the sources).
• Not caring about the stakeholders’ interests. People are the most important asset in your project — value them.

On your board (ProjectAdm)

In the Stakeholders [WHO] list, record in each card’s description the current engagement level (supportive, neutral or resistant), the strategies chosen for the most critical ones, and who is responsible for engaging each one (as a card member). Watch for signs of resistance throughout execution.

Predictive × Agile

In the Agile approach, engaging starts by making the roles and the cadence explicit: beyond the Product Owner (the owner of value), you have the Scrum Master — who serves the team, facilitates the events and removes impediments — and the Development Team, self-organized, which decides how the work gets done. Stakeholder engagement happens naturally in the fixed cadence of ceremonies, especially at the Sprint Review.

🎯 Your turn — Engage the stakeholders

🎯 Objective: win the complicity of the team and of the other stakeholders, so the project can be executed and adapt to change.

✅ Before you start: the plan approved (Step 5); read the strategies for engaging the team above.

🗃️ On your board: work in the Stakeholders [WHO] list.

📋 Checklist:

1. Record the engagement level of each stakeholder (supportive, neutral, resistant).
2. Choose the most suitable strategies for the most critical ones.
3. Define who is responsible for engaging each one.
4. Watch for signs of resistance throughout execution and adapt.

🎁 Your deliverable: the engagement plan recorded on the cards.  ⏱️ Time: continuous, throughout execution.  🛠️ Tools: ProjectAdm + the strategies and worst practices from this step.

💡 Accelerate with AI: run Step 6 in the course menu. It reads your Stakeholders list and hands you the prompt already filled in with the people you registered in Step 1 — it asks the AI for the likely engagement level and the best strategy for each one. Paste the answer into the “0. Inbox” card and run Step 6 again: the engagement plan is written into each stakeholder’s card, without touching the text you wrote.

💬 Tip: more important than adopting the strategies is monitoring engagement, staying alert to resistance and adapting.

With the people engaged, it is time to make it happen: Step 7.