Managing Stakeholders in a Technology Landscape

Most of how we manage stakeholders is not unique—all disciplines need a stakeholder list, a communication plan, and roles and responsibilities. However, there are some aspects to working in a technology company that can add some additional constraints to how we move forward. We’ll take a look at three aspects of how managing stakeholders can be different while working in a tech environment:

• Communication systems

• Tooling

• Technical and non-technical stakeholders

Communication systems

Working for a technology company means we get to work with cutting-edge software; however, this can also be a burden. During the pandemic, many companies scrambled to update and add additional ways to communicate while workers were remote. Companies have since transitioned into a seemingly permanent hybrid model of working from home and the office, and it’s hovering around the 50/50 ratio—at least in the US.

With all of these rapid changes from fully in-person to fully remote, and now hybrid, the technology landscape of available ways to communicate has grown with a myriad of messaging systems such as Slack, Microsoft Teams, Amazon Chime, and Zoom, as well as other productivity tools such as Quip, OneNote, and Evernote. In some cases, a single company may be using multiple systems that accomplish the same or overlapping purposes. This may mean that not everyone is at the same level regarding what forms of communication work for them or their team. So, when it comes to our list of stakeholders, their roles, and which communication types are appropriate for them, we may find that we need to track what systems are available for each stakeholder.