How to Facilitate Effective Communication with Stakeholders to Maximize Project Success

Engaging effectively with stakeholders throughout a project is critical to project success.

A stakeholder is anyone who impacts – and will be impacted by – your project and its outcome. For example, your project team, the client(s), the contractors you use, and the top management within your company.

The most influential stakeholders within your project are your project team and your client, who play the biggest role in the project. Here’s how to facilitate effective communication to engage key stakeholders and achieve project success.

1. Create a communication plan
   The key to good communication is planning for it. Here, you can read about facilitating communication and boosting employee engagement with the project management process.
   
   In addition to fostering great communication within your team, it’s just as important to create a plan for how you’ll engage with clients throughout the project process. After all, the project is for them. If you don’t check in with your client at various points throughout the project, the finished product may be wrong for them.
   
   

   Even if you check in, but infrequently, the client may have to request backtracking and significant changes that alter the project timeline and budget. This, in turn, can decrease the satisfaction of your customers with your work. By predetermining points in the project timeline in which you’ll engage with the client and how you can avoid greater delays.

   So, create a communication plan specific to your client, starting with a kick-off meeting to iron out the details of the project and include plans to re-engage with the client in the project timeline to minimize backtracking. You can also check out how to manage change requests here and implement this into your communication plan.

2. Decide on your communication channels
   Depending on the nature of the project and who you’ll be communicating with throughout, you should decide on the communication channels you’ll use and when.
   
   For example, it might be best to hold in-person meetings with your team and clients at key points in the project. At more regular intervals – and when you just need to check something small with the client or your team – you might use email, social media, or a collaborative working platform to keep the project running smoothly.

3. Plan for the eventuality of conflict
   A key element of successful communication is being able to navigate conflict effectively. To do this, you should assume conflict as inevitable and develop a conflict-resolution plan to combat problems peacefully.
   
   Make sure to come up with a plan to navigate conflicts both with clients and with your team. Each plan should include a list of potential conflicts that may arise and a standardized approach to dealing with them.
   
   That way, you can act in the way you and your team have predetermined is best rather than exacerbate any problem by acting in the heat of the moment.

4. Manage expectations
   A good way to reduce conflict in the first place is to set expectations early with your client. If you think there are any misalignments between the suggested project scope and their timeline and budget, be upfront about this from the start so you don’t disappoint your client later.
   
   Take them through the change management process and ensure they know that significant project scope changes will likely affect the timeline and budget. Lastly, agree on a communication protocol that suits both parties and ensures your client feels informed enough at important milestones along the project.
   
   That way, no one is uncertain about how the project process will go, and your client is less likely to be surprised (in a bad way) by anything that happens along the way.

5. Foster strong relationships
   Project management is a people-driven process; the project’s relative success depends on the people, including how well they communicate and work together.
   
   So, make it a priority to foster strong relationships between team members, perhaps including opportunities for bonding outside of work and to build a strong culture of respect, transparency, and communication.
   
   With your clients, communicate respectfully and work with your client’s best interests to build trust and strengthen your professional relationship. Like with your team, you can also try to build a relationship outside of the office with a client you hope to work with on a longer-term basis, with activities like coffee meetings or even a round of golf.