How to manage stakeholder interactions in a design project

Understanding clients to build a better relationship while managing a complex design project.

As a service design consultancy, we work on several kinds of design projects with varying durations — few may involve a brief engagement, and some may get quite complex spanning over months. Our work makes us interact with clients of all sorts. Some are simple, some difficult, and some well, just different. It’s important to understand the client to build a better relationship with them.

I recently worked on a project with one of the big 4s. As a creative lead on this project, I learned a great deal about understanding and managing a complex project. The primary tool for navigating around tight deadlines, intricate workflows, and overwhelming micro-management is effective communication. And, of course, to always keep calm and never bite off more than you can chew!

Here are a few insights you can use as tips while working on complex projects with several stakeholders.

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Get the pulse of your client

The key to building a good rapport with the client is to understand how your client functions. By that I mean, try to get a glimpse of how they look at design, their level of knowledge and understanding of the subject, their background or past experience, and their position in the hierarchy of their organization. The objective here is not to get into a detailed investigation, but to just have an idea so that you can have conversations with them at that level.

In my case, the key Point of Contact I was dealing with was from a business and management background. She was more comfortable understanding things from a timeline perspective than effort. Design processes and protocols needed to be spelled out very clearly. Once you get a hang of how they work, it’ll be a lot easier to build a relationship with them.

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Don’t keep them in the dark.

One of the key things I learned on this project was to keep the client informed about what’s happening and what is coming up next. Especially as a consultancy partner, we work remotely, so it’s not as easy for them to keep track of what’s going on. Share your process plans, timelines, and status update regularly with them so they know what to expect and when to expect it. This not only ensures transparency and trust, but it also reduces the resistance in times when plans need to be modified.

When we follow this, clients act as check-points in our design process and keep us updated about constraints so we can work around them, thereby reducing the chances of re-work.

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Build your bridges right

The project required me to frequently interact with multiple stakeholders from the client’s side like the project manager, designers (client-side), team leads from other departments, and the project head. We also had review sessions with extended members from the client organization. We used to receive requests from multiple stakeholders at the same time and it became hard to manage the asks. In such a situation, it is important to have one dedicated Point of Contact from the client-side who gathers requests internally from teams, prioritizes them, and shares them with us. Don’t hesitate to ask the client for it as it is their responsibility. In addition, it also helps to establish a good, friendly rapport with the Point of Contact. In my case, the rapport really helped us stay aware of internal client expectations, sense red flags in advance, and get the support from the Point of Contact at rough times.

Courtesy: giphy.com

Plan for Plan B's

As a partner or as an expert who has been hired, it’s important to always recommend the right direction and decisions for the client and the best way to execute it. But, it’s also important to plan for plan Bs because the recommended path may not necessarily be the most viable for the client. Always ensure that your recommendations and alternatives are present on-record. The best way to do that is to have it on email so it becomes easily accessible to pull up whenever necessary.

No matter how complex a design project is, a mutual working relationship is essential. Often, we notice the reasons for delays in delivery are due to a lack of transparency and clarity in conversation. If both the client and the design teams are in sync with understanding and communicating the objective of the requirement, all projects would be a cakewalk!