9. Stakeholder Analysis

Identify any potential roadblocks to achieving your objectives, and make a plan to deal with each

Often enough, some of the people whose support you need for the successful adoption of your recommendation will not be in the room during your presentation.  To ensure success, you will need to identify those people and create a plan to get each of them to agree to the steps that they need to take if your recommendation is going to bear fruit.

Think through each of the critical decisions that have to be made in order for your recommendations to be implemented, and who needs to make each of those decisions. Think also about whether there are any people who, if they decided that they did not like your ideas for any reason, could block their implementation.  Make a list of all these people.  You will need to approach those who are not going to be in your audience, preferably before your presentation.  You may also want to approach some of the more important ones who are going to be in your audience, in order to try to “pre-sell” them on your ideas.  Once you have your list of people, write down beside each one of them what they need to think or do for your recommendation to be a success, and where you think they stand right now.  Then create a plan for how you will influence each, and schedule meetings accordingly.

Then go to step 10: Measurement.