Stakeholder risks, from active resistance to compliance challenges, can jeopardize even the best-planned projects. Traditional methods may leave you exposed, but stakeholder management software offers a smarter solution. Discover how a dedicated SRM platform empowers teams to anticipate issues, control project narratives, and build stronger partnerships. In this blog post, we'll identify different stakeholder risks and how Jambo Stakeholder Relationship Management software helps to manage them.
Common stakeholder risks that prevent project success
Many projects fail to achieve their objectives due to unmanaged stakeholder risks. Understanding these common risks ensures project success and maintains strong stakeholder relationships.
Risk 1: Where's your stakeholder information?
Your stakeholder engagement project or program is a collaborative process. Several people might engage with or consult with stakeholders and input relevant data, which means your data is likely in several places.
Depending on how you manage your stakeholder information, your collaborators might avoid the input process because your current stakeholder management process is clunky, messy, and inconsistent (which is often the case when using spreadsheets).
When the stakeholder information input process is frustrating or confusing, data is often stored in emails, spreadsheets, project management programs, desktops, USB sticks, Post-it notes, and even external hard drives.
Not only does scattered information make organizing and reporting on important stakeholder data challenging, but there's also a risk of losing valuable information when people switch projects or leave your organization, taking the knowledge with them.
This missing stakeholder information creates gaps in your data, which is risky because you never know when a manager, a key stakeholder or a legal authority might ask for your complete records.
Beyond incomplete data, it's also risky to have potentially confidential information floating around unprotected on laptops and other devices.
Learn more about 5 things you can't do using spreadsheets for stakeholder management→
Risk 2: Is your stakeholder information protected?
When engaging and consulting with stakeholders, you're dealing with personal information and sensitive project data, which means you must ensure the information is secure.
It's crucial to ensure that your data input process is consistent and that the stakeholder information management system you're using to manage that sensitive data is secure, utilizing extra security measures like two-factor authentication. Using a secure, cloud-based software will help to keep your information protected from program crashes and out of reach from those who don't need full access.
With cloud-based stakeholder relationship management (SRM) software like Jambo, you can manage user permissions and control the data users access. This is especially useful if you'd like to give users different permission levels.
Risk 3: Are stakeholder issues resolved and commitments followed up on?
Dealing with various unique stakeholders (all with individual concerns and opinions) means you'll likely encounter issues, such as noise complaints, environmental impact concerns, and damaged fences, which must be resolved as quickly and tactfully as possible.
When managing relationships with many stakeholders, you might face multiple issues, grievances and concerns, and keeping track of everything can quickly become complicated. If you fail to address and resolve even one problem, this can snowball out of control and lead to a detrimental backlash and risky consequences. Regarding commitments (or promises), it's essential to follow through with these to build stakeholder trust and develop meaningful relationships. It's also important to keep track of all commitments and their current statuses to ensure they are fulfilled.
We know that some commitments can't be fulfilled until years into the future, and it's hard to remember a promise made five years ago (especially if it pre-dates your time on a team), which is why tracking everything is essential. With your information tracked, organized and accessible, you can quickly review commitments, understand what was agreed to, including any liabilities, helping to support accountability with your team to ensure commitments are always fulfilled. This data trail is essential and valuable for both your organization's risk-management efforts and understanding your stakeholders.
Being accountable to your stakeholders by following through on all stakeholder issues and commitments is crucial during the planning, pre-development, and operational stages. This is best accomplished with an SRM designed to keep you and your teammates on the same page.
Discover three reasons stakeholder relationships are key to your organization's success →
Risk 4: Can you share the whole story?
Organizations are often subject to regulatory scrutiny regarding whether adequate engagement or consultation with stakeholders has occurred. If this happens, you'll need to show your history of engagement and consultation with one or many stakeholders over an extended period. If your data is scattered, incomplete, or messy, gathering every piece of required information can be very time-consuming and frustrating, which is risky as this process is often time-sensitive.
With an SRM like Jambo, you'll have an audit trail of your information, helping you keep track of all stakeholder communications and all changes to the data (i.e., when changes were made and by whom), which helps ensure the authenticity of your data. You can use the issues management module to show what was done to address concerns and grievances and how you came to certain project decisions. This is a fantastic tool for visually explaining your project and getting plans approved!
Tracking your stakeholder data and any changes made to that data within a centralized and easy-to-navigate space will lower risk and keep your information up-to-date, accurate, and authentic, which will better protect your organization.
Explore more about keeping your stakeholder data clean and audit-ready for project success→
How Jambo helps to manage stakeholder risks
With Jambo Stakeholder Relationship Management software, teams can proactively respond to issues and strengthen stakeholder relationships throughout the project. The following are ways Jambo can help:
1. Be transparent with project plans
- Integrated maps to help track areas of concern and consultation locations.
- Ability to export and share geospatial PDFs.
- Insightful analytics and reports to help illustrate the status of projects.
2. Hosted cloud
- Available as a secure, yet easy-to-manage hosted solution.
- No complicated and messy installations.
3. Mobile
- Responsive design enables a great experience on tablets, mobile phones, desktops, and laptops.
- Use voice-to-text to capture engagements effortlessly.
4. Issues management
- Know what issues have been raised, when and by whom.
- Easily identify which issues could put your project at risk through a materiality rating system and intelligent reporting.
- Manage concerns and grievances and use the easy-to-understand timeline to show how you worked to resolve stakeholder issues and why you made project decisions.
5. Commitment tracking
- Track project commitments and view when they were made and by whom.
- Ensure commitments are carried forward and fulfilled.
6. Cloud collaboration
- Experience secure collaboration across teams with our web-based experience.
- Access stakeholder profile information – including communications, issues, commitments and tasks – so you are prepared when communicating with stakeholders.
- Everyone can centrally track and store all project information, so you always know what's happening without asking (or sending an email).
7. Reporting
- Create concise and useful project reports that illustrate stakeholder engagement project progress.
- Save report types to make regular report requests easy to handle.
- Download and share visual project reports with decision-makers to keep them current.
Here's more information on how Jambo can help to prevent stakeholder risks→
Why choose Jambo for effective stakeholder management
Jambo simplifies stakeholder management by organizing all your communications, issues, and commitments in one easy-to-use platform. It helps teams identify and address risks early, reducing project delays and disruptions. With Jambo, you build stronger relationships and ensure every stakeholder is heard, keeping your projects on track and successful.
