4 ways to quickly build new stakeholder relationships

[Megan Barrie]

We’ve all had that anxious feeling when having to work with someone new. It brings me back to school group projects, hoping that we work well together to complete the assignment. How are we going to interact? What are their working styles? While we don’t have control over others' actions or emotions, we do have control over how we as program managers can best set up a team to communicate and work cohesively toward a shared goal. Especially when the culture of building fast is king, it’s important to prioritize harmonious interactions to make getting to your goal quickly possible. Here are a few ways I like to do to build productive relationships with new stakeholders.

• Align on project goals & owners - Who is the ultimate decision maker for each work stream? One of the first artifacts I like to create is a DACI Decision-Making Framework which allows us to clearly discuss ownership and understand how to cleanly escalate issues as they come up. Or perhaps if you’re so new to working together it could be valuable to set up a Roles & Responsibilities session to align on ownership.

• Establish clear & consistent rituals - Utilize your first few meetings as a newly formed team to align on your rituals. How will you communicate your weekly updates? Where can you surface questions for the team? How will you escalate any risks? If you decide to do a standup, is it live or async, daily or weekly? No matter what working agreements you align on, make sure you establish these clearly in meetings, and set up regular check ins across work streams.

• Find out how they like to communicate - Are they a visual learner? Need to chat things through live? Everyone differs on how they give and receive information, but it can be so helpful to read someone’s User Manual, a play we like to utilize at Atlassian, for a quick start guide for each individual. Try and utilize your first few meetings and kick offs to do quick ice breakers to get to know one another outside of your work. Building rapport is often seeing your teammates as fellow human beings. Don’t under estimate the power of a good ice breaker! Some of my current favorites include:

  • What’s the most treasured item on your desk?

  • What’s your current obsession? Book, show, podcast, album, hobby, etc.

• Be curious, open, and assume best intentions - While we all care about delivering value quickly, it’s made all the more easier when a team actually works well together. If you assume your teammates are also curious like you and have good intentions, questions that come up won’t ruffle feathers. Instead of worrying about politics, you can instead focus on why they might be asking, what hasn’t been made clear, and it could be an opportunity to partner closer with the teams who do know the answer. Kindness and curiosity really do go a long way! At Atlassian our company values tend to help skew conversations this way. If you’re finding this trickier to execute on, try bringing ‘team values’ up at your next cross-functional meeting and see if you can foster more collaborative ways of working through values.

These are just a few ways that I like to set up teams for success when we’re just starting out together. Depending on how complex the program, sometimes I’ll push in one area more than another, but at the core is always getting on and staying on the same page. The newness butterflies don’t need to stick around for long. Soon enough you’ll be humming along!

How do you like to build rapport with new teams? Is there a specific play or ritual you like to use with well-oiled teams? Is there a team value that is critical to harmonious work?