Communicating with Stakeholders

This module addresses the communication that occurs between the conceptual planning team and its key stakeholders. While the majority of this resource addresses the internal functioning and dynamics of the planning team, a critical aspect of the team’s effectiveness is the exchange that occurs between the team and those who rely on the insights and products the team develops - detailed planners, Commanders, and other senior leaders. The team itself may achieve significant depth of insight and shared understanding about the problem it is facing; but this process is not an intellectual exercise that occurs in a vacuum. The team has to effectively convey its understanding of the problem to key decision makers and other users of the information. This module addresses challenges, tips and strategies for taking the team’s collective work forward to those outside the team.

"Perhaps one of the most damaging things that design practitioners do…is to present emergent products as the results of design work. I use the term “emergent products” to describe the many complex, often engrossing drawings, white-board sessions, and PowerPoint slides that planning teams build during their journey to understand and appreciate a complex problem. These design products usually contain language, concepts, and graphics that resonate for the planning team, but… The products are also often impossible for the larger audience and the decision maker to understand…. Planners must be constant editors…otherwise planners become detached philosophers…”

(Zweibelson, 2012, p.14)

Key Issues and Challenges

Packaging the Information. A primary issue that makes conveying understanding to external stakeholders challenging is figuring out how to “package” the information in a way that is meaningful and impactful. A challenge is to recognize the possibility that interim products that may be well-understood within the team may not necessarily be readily absorbed and understood by those who have been uninvolved in making sense of the problem. Graphics, drawings, and complex language that are clear and straightforward to those within the team can be entirely incomprehensible to those outside the team. Furthermore, when teams invest significant time and effort into development of products, members can become enamored with those products and be blinded to the possibility that the products may not make sense to others.

(Example)

A related challenge is getting to know the stakeholder audience for the team’s products and the way the audience would prefer to receive and absorb information. Different stakeholders will have different preferences for consuming information. Some stakeholders may want face-to-face updates, some may favor narrative descriptions, and other stakeholders will prefer a visual representation. Getting to know the audience will help the team tailor its message and communication medium to the preferences of key stakeholders.

Commander Engagement. An additional factor relevant to communicating with external stakeholders is the level of Commander engagement with the team. While the planning team’s activity is always done at the behest of the Commander, experienced planners describe considerable variability in the level of Commander involvement in the actual activity. Due to an enormous array of competing demands, the Commander may have very little involvement in the day-to-day workings and dialogue of the team. Because of this, he/she is unlikely to be exposed to the evolution of logic underlying the team’s insights and recommendations. In these situations, teams need alternative strategies for keeping the commander apprised of the team’s evolving understanding, such as communicating to him through senior leaders or various information-sharing media and products.

“Within our culture it’s very difficult to get a regular session with the commander…You don’t go see the Commander unless you have something substantive to talk to him about. You can’t just say, “We want to pick your brain on something we’re struggling with and get your thoughts.” That’s not supported in our environment. We have to be pretty refined about what we take to him. However, we’ve found he’s a voracious reader. So if we can’t get something on his calendar, we’ll use written narrative with accompanying visualizations. Then he’ll provide comments or come talk about it when he’s available. He’ll usually give some handwritten notes that provide good insights. With others it varies, it’s personality-dependent. Some want a briefing. Some want to read a paper. Some want both.”

(U.S. Army LTC)

Finally, communicating complex information is challenging. It can take years of training and experience to become skilled at effectively communicating complex concepts to others. This is true for communicating in multiple modalities, including in written text, verbally, and visually.

Tips and Things to Consider

The following is a set of hints and strategies to consider when conveying the team’s understanding and insights to external stakeholders.

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Study the team’s stakeholders (Expand)

Effectively conveying the understanding and recommendations the team has developed requires that the team understand stakeholders’ needs, styles, and preferences for consuming information. Some teams are able to figure this out fairly effortlessly based on regular interactions with key decision makers. But other teams have found the need to actively discern needs and preferences. A couple strategies team members may consider for doing this are:
- Conduct a stakeholder analysis. As a team, explicitly identify and discuss the key stakeholders. Who are they? What is the team’s understanding of the stakeholders’ goals and needs? What decisions will the team’s products be informing? How might needs of diverse stakeholders align or be in conflict with one another? What does that mean for the product the team ultimately provides for the stakeholder? (See Stakeholder Analysis Guidance and Stakeholder Analysis Template.)
- Directly ask. If the opportunity avails itself, have a conversation or informal interview with key stakeholders. Ask them what they want and need, what their goals are, and how they will use the insights and products your team develops.
- Consider a dual leadership arrangement for your team. One team we studied found it valuable to have two types of leaders: A "down and in" guy who focuses on the day-to-day internal workings of the team, and an “up and out guy” who serves as a link between the team and the external organization. This person is someone who knows the organization and understands the politics. He/she can feed information back to the team about the clients’ needs and preferences, and also provide a check on whether insights and products developed by the team are aligned with clients’ needs and preferences.

“I would write emails to the Cdr. It would help me to articulate the ideas (There’s the adage: if you haven’t written about something then you haven’t thought about it). I would write a concise thing to the G3 and try to boil the thing down into the plainest language as possible (where we’re at and where we’re going) then he could provide feedback or follow-up with me asynchronously, then I could bring that feedback into the next OPT meeting. Sometimes feedback was delete this, or delete that, or ask questions. The G3 was sensitive to the politics and personalities at the upper levels and was able to guide the team that way.”

(U.S. Army MAJ)

Socialize ideas with stakeholders (Expand)

Experienced planning and problem solving teams have found it effective to provide interim updates to key stakeholders as their understanding and ideas evolve - rather than waiting until they have completed their product. This provides an opportunity for the team to get “outside their own head,” to expose stakeholders to their logic, and to get feedback to help them refine their thinking. In some cases these updates might occur verbally; but other teams have found it effective to provide written updates such as ½-1 page narratives for stakeholders to mark up with feedback.

Recognize the natural tendency to become enamored with internal team products (Expand)

Although the team’s interim analysis products and visual representations may hold significant meaning for the team in framing the problem, those internal working products may not be appropriate for the stakeholder audience. The products need to stand alone and make sense to key stakeholders.

Recognize that simple does not equal simplistic (Expand)

Simplify the language and visual representations; but avoiding making it so simple that the meaning is lost or obscured. Resist using complex and novel terminology that the team has used to explore the problem; it may be viewed as esoteric by the audience. Explain insights and recommendations using standard organizational terms and language. For example, when the audience includes detailed planners, couch the team’s insights and products in language the audience is accustomed to using. The extent to which the team can simplify concepts using language the organization is accustomed to using will increase the likelihood that it is understood and acted upon by stakeholders.

Depict the essential relationships (Expand)

Depict the essential relationships between components of the message to be communicated. When creating visual representations of the ideas, illustrate relationships in a way that reveals priority and hierarchy.

Chunk and layer the information (Expand)

Chunk and layer the information to reduce the amount of information that stakeholders need to attend to at one time.

“The stakeholder narrative is typically about ½ page. First half they read and then put all their comments on the bottom half. Most stakeholders are high ranking, and don’t have a lot of time. They need the bottom line up front in a clear and concise manner…”

(U.S. Army MAJ)

Seek external feedback (Expand)

Consider bringing in someone outside the team to give the team a “sanity check” on its final products. This person might be resident within the organization; or he/she could be someone the members’ trust outside the immediate organization (depending on classification level of the products).
- In one successful design team, the person who was able to provide this external feedback was the “up and out” guy – the individual who was not involved in the day-to-day workings of the team, and who served as a liaison with the stakeholder audience.
- Seeking external feedback can help the team evaluate its products by reflecting on questions such as:
  - “Does the product make sense to someone outside the team? Does the product communicate what the team is trying to have the product communicate? Does the product involve a lot of explanation? Or can product stand alone?”
  - If someone is brought in to review the team’s products, it can be helpful to have this individual explain back to the team the message he/she is taking away from the product review. This activity can help to illuminate potential points of confusion or areas that need to be rewritten or refined.

Consider alternative means of packaging the information (Expand)

Though Powerpoint is a common tool for packaging and communicating information within the military, PowerPoint is not without its flaws (see articles). Different ways that planning teams have communicated their insights and recommendations (in ways other than a slide deck) include ½-1 page “stakeholder narratives” that provide a non-bulleted text-based description of the ideas and recommendations, visual representations that model ideas and recommendations using graphical media, or some combination thereof. One team leader described packaging his team’s insights into what he referred to as “alternative realities” – which were different views on the AO couched in differing assumptions.

“I’m the one who gets to go in [to the design team] and say: this is great, but it doesn’t speak to anybody. They (the audience) is not going to care about this right now.”

(U.S. Army LTC)

Leverage existing tools and technology to communicate (Expand)

When possible and appropriate, consider how to leverage existing communication mechanisms to share the team’s evolving understanding and recommendations. One team, for example, described the utility of using Command Post of the Future (CPOF) - rather than “static” PowerPoint slides - to communicate the evolution of their understanding within the dynamic operational environment.

“These last two units use CPOF as a way to present data and information and knowledge to the Commander for battle updates…The nice thing about CPOF is it updates itself. You can’t do that in PowerPoint. They got used to using CPOF as a way to transfer info and knowledge to commander. The Commander started trusting his staff for giving the information he needed to make decisions. CPOF…updates continuously. He sees where changes are, so he’s constantly in tune to his operational environment. You can’t work that way with PowerPoint. It’s too static. Only a snapshot in time.”

(U.S. Army CIV)

Consider alternative communication tools (Expand)

One alternative to PowerPoint for representing complex ideas is PREZI (www.prezi.com). Prezi can be a helpful tool for the team to explore and understand the problem space and for documenting the team’s shared understanding as it evolves.

Build in opportunities for discussion and exchange with key stakeholders (Expand)

It is important to provide opportunities for the stakeholders to ask clarifying questions, elaborate on ideas, and seek additional information on the team’s products. In some cases, there may be built-in continuity (i.e., someone involved in the conceptual planning/problem framing phase may also be involved in the detailed planning). But this is not always the case. One major concern that has been expressed is that designers’/conceptual planners’ recommendations are simply “for detailed planners to implement.” To smooth the transfer of ideas and insights to those who need to act on them, consider actively building in opportunities for this important exchange and continual iteration of ideas to occur.

“We don’t have much interaction with Commander, so we deal with his senior leaders. We have senior leader discussions that represent the Commander (various staff elements). But direct interactions with the Commander as described by doctrine on ADM are not really resident in our experience right now.”

How much do you interact with him?

“…it depends on the design effort. We usually have 1-2 iterative sessions with him. Will typically meet when there’s a decision point we need him to weigh in on. Or when we hit a point of reframing, and we have to tell him why we can’t get from A to B without backing up and reframing. And, he is part of the final iterations, final polishing. Providing his fingerprint on final thoughts at end.”

(U.S. Army LTC)

Seek the Commander’s input at key decision points (Expand)

While the Commander commissions the team, most Commanders simply do not have the bandwidth to be involved in the day-to-day workings and dialogue of the team. Therefore, the team needs to be strategic about when to seek the Commander’s guidance and how to best use limited opportunities for interaction with him/her.

Experienced team leaders have described key triggers that alert them to the need to engage the Commander. For example:
- When there is a decision point they need his/her perspective on.
- When the team needs a more explicit statement of objective or intent.
- When the team is having difficulty figuring out a productive way forward.
- When the team realized they need to reframe their understanding.
- When the team needs assistance identifying or recruiting a new team member or subject matter expert.
- When a particular team member is not working well with others and/or not aligning with the team’s mission and values.
- When the team has completed its final product(s) and needs the Commander’s final “stamp of approval.”

Tools and Resources

This section provides a set of tools and resources that planning teams may find helpful for preparing the team to work together and for doing the work itself. The tools and resources are organized around the following topic areas: 1) exercises to prepare the team to work together, 2) exercises and videos for preparing the mental workspace, 3) assessment tools, and 4) suggested reading.

Visual Communication Resources and Tools

Periodic Table of Visualization Methods
Description: Examples of a variety of visualization methods organized like the Periodic Table of the Elements. Example visualizations can be accessed by clicking on each element.

Idiagram – The Art of Complex Problem Solving
Description: Visual approaches to help people think holistically about complex problems and communicate to those who must act on the problems.

Visual Complexity.com
Description: A resource for those interested in visualization of complex networks and visualization methods. Provides examples of how others have visualized their findings and insights.

Videos

Dan Roam - Blah Blah Blah: What To Do When Words Don't Work
Description: Dan Roam describes how pictures and drawings can communicate complex ideas.

The Art of Data Visualization
Description: PBSoftBook digital series that discusses the role of visual strategies to communicate information.

Simplifying Complexity
Description: Ecologist Eric Berlow describes communicate complex systems using simple graphics.

Healthcare on a Napkin
Description: An example slideshow from author Dan Roam demonstrating how to clarify and communicate complex problems using simple drawing tools.

Exercises

Stakeholder Analysis; Stakeholder Grid Template [PDF]
Description: Tool for identifying and understanding key stakeholders.

MAKING SENSE OF COMPLEX PROBLEMS

Communicating with Stakeholders

Key Issues and Challenges

Tips and Things to Consider

Tools and Resources

Visual Communication Resources and Tools

Videos

Exercises

Suggested Readings