Data is the key to your stakeholder engagement projects, and how you manage that data will impact your project's success.
To manage your stakeholder data more effectively, you want to keep it organized, centralized and accessible. This way, you can easily understand whom you're engaging with (i.e., your stakeholders) and track everything they share with you throughout the engagement process, so you can use this data to build stronger relationships and achieve better project outcomes.
If you're interested in learning three tips to improve your stakeholder data management, keep reading!
Three tips to improve your stakeholder data management
The following are three tips to improve your stakeholder data management:
Tip 1: Improve your contact management
Some of the first things you need to understand are who you are talking to and what they are saying. To help you answer these questions, your contact management needs to be organized and easy to understand.
You should be able to find your stakeholders, their contact information, and a history of engagement, along with all associated communications, issues, commitments, and tasks, in one organized place, without having to dig for your data.
This is where Stakeholder Relationship Management (SRM) software shines. There's no need to dig for information or ask your teams for updates, as your data is all available and organized within the SRM.
Why spreadsheets are not as effective for contact management
With spreadsheets, it's not uncommon for teams to input and organize data inconsistently, so it often becomes a free-for-all with teams adding duplicate entries or adding entries with spelling errors, etc. This can appear unprofessional when reaching out to stakeholders and misspelling their names or referencing an outdated job title. It can also increase your project's risks if you miss an important update because you didn't realize it had been logged in a duplicate spreadsheet you were unaware of.
Your stakeholders need to know you take them and the information they share with you seriously
It's essential to be cautious with your stakeholder data, as it impacts your ability to connect with them effectively. If they don't trust you or think you're not taking them seriously, they may be less willing to engage with you, which can negatively impact your data quality and overall project.
By improving your contact management, you'll be able to connect more effectively and build trusting, long-lasting relationships.
Tip 2: Track everything while keeping your data organized
Beyond stakeholder contact information, ensure that you and your team log and track every conversation you have with your stakeholders and all updates, as you never know what information might be crucial for your project.
For example, if stakeholders have raised some concerns, you want to be able to track and monitor them, as you never know when one of these might suddenly escalate into a high-risk issue that you'll need to be fully aware of.
You want to have all your data logged and organized from the start, so you don't have to search for it later.
Why spreadsheets aren't as effective for tracking and managing stakeholder data
Suppose you're logging your stakeholder information in spreadsheets. In that case, it's very common to suddenly be juggling multiple spreadsheets and/or versions, which makes tracking your data and keeping up with updates challenging, if not impossible.
You might have started one spreadsheet for contacts, while your team started another spreadsheet for commitments, issues, concerns, and so on. Before you know it, you have many spreadsheets floating around your organization, which makes it confusing to know where to properly log new updates or where to find previously logged information, resulting in disorganized and ineffective stakeholder data management.
Even if you and your teams are tracking everything in your spreadsheets, if your data isn't organized and easy to find, you can't see how all your information connects together to gain those crucial understandings and insights you'll inevitably need.
An SRM helps you easily track all your data so that it's organized and understandable
With clear spaces for all your data, an SRM will help ensure everything is tracked consistently and in an organized, easy-to-understand manner.
With the concerns example mentioned above, an SRM like Jambo allows you to tag any concerns so that they're easy to track and monitor, which is especially important if they become a more significant issue down the road.
If a concern does become an issue, Jambo's issue management allows you to quickly understand what issues have been raised, when they were raised, and by whom. Additionally, with Jambo, users can also identify the impact and priority of each issue with a colour-coded materiality matrix and innovative reporting options.
This next-level SRM data organization helps you to track, monitor and use your data throughout your project, even as things inevitably change, so your data is working for you and towards your goals.
Check out three ways Jambo's tags can help your stakeholder management→
Tip 3: Keep your data secure and accessible for your team in one location
Managing data in multiple spreadsheets can be frustrating, which may lead to data gaps
Keeping your stakeholder data in multiple disorganized spreadsheets makes your data more challenging to access, less secure, and unnecessarily disappointing for you and your team.
When something is frustrating to use, your team will often avoid using it altogether, which creates inevitable data gaps as your team won't be inputting their data consistently (or even at all). These data gaps can leave your organization open to unnecessary risks and challenges, as your data may not be as accessible or secure as you'd like.
A quality SRM will keep your data accessible for your team while keeping sensitive information secure
To avoid the frustrations associated with using multiple spreadsheets, it's best to keep all your data centralized in a single, secure, and accessible software, such as an SRM, so you have a single place to store and organize all your stakeholder data easily.
An SRM like Jambo is accessible to your team and anyone who has been given access. With its advanced security and privacy measures, including encryption, single sign-on, and two-factor authentication options, Jambo helps keep your data safe, secure, and accessible to authorized team members. Jambo helps keep your stakeholder data organized, secure and accessible, so you and your team always know where to go to access all your updated stakeholder data without unnecessary frustration or confusion.
The best option for stakeholder data management: Stakeholder Relationship Management (SRM) software
To make the most of these three tips, Stakeholder Relationship Management (SRM) software should be your top choice for data management, as it is specifically designed to manage stakeholder relationships and all the data surrounding those relationships. From communications, issues, commitments, tasks and more, an SRM is designed to be a collaborative, easy and effective solution to streamline your stakeholder management process and help ensure you get the most from your stakeholder data.
For those wondering if it's time to stop using spreadsheets, download our free 10-question checklist: Is It Time to Stop Using Spreadsheets for Your Stakeholder Information by clicking the image below.
