Propelling an idea to production – the importance of buy-in

By Hannah Bhindi, Digital Advisory

— 7 minute read

Imagine you have spent years in training as a pilot and are about to commence your first commercial flight. Customers have paid, all are seated and there is an excited buzz on board. You put on your aviator glasses ready to go... there is just one thing missing. You have no crew. There are two options: 1. Fly without any support, or 2. Cancel the flight. Neither option is ideal.

For those that have managed or supported initiatives without stakeholder buy-in, this scenario might sound somewhat familiar. As a designer it is easy to become highly invested in an idea or design you’re working on, especially when the benefits seem obvious to you. However, if these benefits aren’t aligned to what your key stakeholders value, the initiative will probably fail to launch. This article will provide practical advice on how to communicate tangible value and secure the critical stakeholder buy-in required to succeed.

What is buy-in?

Large scale and complex initiatives typically require strong engagement with multiple stakeholders. Their understanding of the customer and commercial imperatives, clarity of their role and degree of engagement will determine how vested in and committed to supporting the initiative they are. This is called buy-in and is dependent on several key factors:

1. Senior leadership commitment. Having senior leadership endorse a solution design proves to stakeholders that the initiative is aligned to strategy, is a priority for the business and has commercial support. As a designer, it is important to understand why your work is important to senior stakeholders. Regularly checking in will ensure you are delivering value in line with their expectations (e.g. time, cost, risk reduction).
2. Appropriate project resourcing. An initiative might have the most compelling business case, but to execute it and meet expectations, you need the right team in place. This will give stakeholders confidence in the project’s ability to deliver high quality outcomes. From the outset, consider what skills are required for effective design and delivery - creating a skills matrix which can highlight if there are any critical skill gaps in the team.
3. Sensitivity to change management. With any new solution design comes change, which can be unsettling for teams. Understanding and being able to empathise with the impact of these changes helps to strengthen stakeholder engagement and facilitates smoother transitions. When designing solutions, it helps to consider interim interventions that improve the user experience without drastically changing how teams operate. Creating value for teams quickly (even if it is a short-term fix) helps to create confidence in and support for implementing larger strategic solutions.
4. Maintaining accountability. Regular monitoring and reporting on progress (against Objective and Key Results - OKRs) provides transparency, accountability and ensures expectations across stakeholder groups are aligned. As a designer, it is important to consider which metrics best communicate the customer value and ensure you can measure this to track progress. Progress can also be presented to stakeholders through formal initiative committees and showcases to demo progress.

Strategies for securing buy-in

While the importance of buy-in may seem obvious, achieving the above can be a challenge. As a designer, you can think about approaching this the same way you would any challenge space – through a human-centred design framework.

DISCOVER & DEFINE

Understanding your stakeholders and defining what they value in the initiative

1. Create a stakeholder map. List all the stakeholders critical to your initiative and their role. As a starting point, consider key decision makers, areas impacted and subject matter experts.
2. Empathy, empathy, empathy! Understanding your project stakeholders, what they value and why is arguably the most important step to ensuring expectations are aligned and met. Where possible, I would recommend connecting one on one to key stakeholders. Creating authentic and meaningful relationships fosters a space to comfortably voice concerns and opinions, allowing you to anticipate and address issues early. For instance, if a stakeholder wants to jump straight to solution design without unpacking the problem, understanding their perspective will help adjust your approach. If their concern stems from budget/timeline constraints you might prioritize immediate solutions, build on existing efforts, and use the discovery period to quantify the problem and strengthen the business case.

Some general questions to gauge stakeholder values and needs include:

1. What are your expectations from this initiative – what is negotiable / non-negotiable?
2. What are the risks and challenges you foresee?
3. How do you want to stay engaged with the initiative?
4. Do you foresee issues committing resources to the initiative?

3. Define Objectives and Key Results (OKRs). Once you understand what your stakeholders value, ensure this is reflected into your project objectives and key results (see detail on how to write OKRs here). It is important when defining OKRs to also consider how they will be measured. Identifying the baseline and expected benefit is critical for the business case. Where possible, I recommend leveraging structured data, for example timestamps, number of people involved, survey results, assumption-based cost models, etc. This data will also help identify the biggest opportunities and support with prioritisation.

DEVELOP

Develop an appropriate engagement approach with your stakeholders to ensure the right touchpoints and communication channels are in place

4. Determine the engagement model. For each stakeholder, it is important to determine how you will communicate with them. To inform this approach, it helps to assess their influence and interest on the initiative.
   1. Influence: How much authority the stakeholder has in influencing the initiative strategy or resources (e.g. Project Sponsor)
   2. Interest: How much the stakeholder is interested in the initiative succeeding (e.g. Product Owner)

Stakeholders can be positioned using Mendelow’s matrix (see below) - note that their position on the matrix may change over the course of the initiative. Understanding their degree of involvement will support with developing the right forums and cadences to connect (e.g. daily stand ups, fortnightly steering committees, monthly showcases, etc.)

DELIVER

Be thoughtful in delivering your key message to ensure it resonates with your different audiences

5. Make the story compelling. While the underlying business case is consistent, tailoring the message to each stakeholder group and their needs will increase engagement and buy-in. Some tips for effective storytelling:
   1. Keep it simple. Be clear on your key message, ask, and next steps.
   2. Make the content relatable. Be empathetic and highlight how the solution is addressing your stakeholder’s key concerns (e.g. time, cost, risk).
   3. Use data. Utilise data to underscore the significance of the problem or opportunity and tangible benefits.
   4. Show, don’t (just) tell. Artefacts such as storyboards and customer mapping can help create empathy for the customer pain points.

ITERATE

Capture ongoing feedback and iterate your approach accordingly

As you would with your customers, check in regularly with your key stakeholders to understand what is working and if there are any gaps or unmet needs. Work through with the project team on how these can be resolved, i.e. reprioritising, increasing resourcing or pushing out timelines. Ensure you create regular opportunities to share back progress and capture stakeholder feedback. This will help to pulse check that expectations are being met.

Get ready for take-off

Just like how a plane needs the support and engagement of a pilot and crew, so too does an initiative with buy-in from stakeholders. Without stakeholder buy-in, the initiative will meander, be costly and most likely crash. If you’re about to commence an initiative, my number one advice is to not under-estimate the importance of connecting and building strong relationships with your key stakeholders. This will allow you to better understand their needs, expectations, and commitment to the initiative. So, strap in and get ready for your initiative to take off to new heights!