Top BA skill — Stakeholder management: how to turn difficult stakeholders into allies

Before I start, it’s important to first understand that while you may encounter a few really difficult people, most are just temporarily difficult and as soon as their issues are managed, it all becomes easier. When you think about it, it’s all a bit more of ‘expectation management’. Ideally I‘d rather call this stakeholder engagement, with expectation management as a subset of it.

As a business analyst, one question you’ll be asked at almost every business analyst job interview is:

“How do you manage difficult stakeholders?”

Not just for interviews, but also as part of the job, managing difficult stakeholders can be one of the most challenging aspects of working as a business analyst in my opinion.

Types of stakeholders

It’s also important to mention that while this article primarily focuses on internal and senior stakeholders, there are a whole lot of other different stakeholders you’ll engage with as a business analyst. It’s important to work with your project managers to identify and effectively engage them all to ensure project success.

There are several types of stakeholders you’ll come across, and your approach will be…