Christian Hahn

With Outlook it is so easy to prioritize your Inbox. I always triage all incoming mails by using the Eisenhower method. An Email is either Important and Urgent, Unimportant and Urgent, Important and Not Urgent or Not Important and Not Urgent. Only the first category is handled by my personally (and if i can handle it within 3-5 minutes immediately done). The next two categories get delegated to my staff. And the last category is either deleted immediately or categorized and archived in Outlook. With that simple method I keep my Inbox clean and stay ahead of email all the time.

I can always recommend an approach where you try to reach win-win(-win) situations. I you make clear for yourself what is in for you and ALL the other parties involved then you can try to reach something like this. But sometimes there are goals which are contrary from each other. In situation like this I recommend the use of an experienced mediator. Can you imagine that in Germany the work of mediators ist still relatively unknown to the broader audience of entrepreneurs or businesspeople?

I led more than 650 cloud projects und negotiated a lot of crucial deals for my former employer. What always helped was to find creative solutions to get stuck negotiations or stuck projects going again. Here a good SWOT analysis can always help and I often use the Microsoft Whiteboard template which is a very good starting point. I also recommend the 635 method (more brainwriting than brainstorming) which integrates the perspectives of the whole group into the process.

A very important skill for good stakeholder management is to listen actively. Try to step into the other person and see the situation from his or her perspective. What is their goal? What are their concerns? What is their purpose? What can you do that this person can achieve his or her objectives? You will be able to answer ALL those questions if you listen carefully and actively to the other person. Also try to find out what kind of person the other one is. I strongly believe in personality assessments like MBTI or DISC model. They help you to understand WHAT information they need and HOW it needs to be delivered.

The only projects which failed in my professional career were the ones were stakeholders weren't involved early and often. Today I used to work as a digitalization expert, and I am very happy that Microsoft offers clear communication plan templates for matters like this. With adoption.microsoft.com you will get everything you need to involve stakeholders at the right time and in the right way no matter what technology or product you are going to introduce or roll out. I can highly recommend such resources! The side benefit: you can customize such communication plans for you own projects since they are industry best practices.

A few years ago, I did the Prosci Change Practitioner training. Equipped with the ADKAR model I was finally able to understand what information in terms of purpose and scope was necessary for projects to succeed. The model and the training itself were very helpful to me. My only wish is that I had discovered ADKAR and Prosci way earlier in my career.