Leading Stakeholders

Leading Stakeholders is a one-day, intensive masterclass in creating effective stakeholder relationships that unlock user-centred design at every level of your organisation. This masterclass will give you the skills and techniques to identify and bring your stakeholders along on the journey of service transformation with you


Who it’s for

This course is for service designers and change-makers who want to expand their level of influence in organisations and learn how to effectively get buy-in for service design and lead their stakeholders to deliver good services.

What you’ll learn

  • Understand how to identify and balance the motivations of your organisation and stakeholders with user needs

  • How to build consensus and buy-in for service design at all levels of an organisation

  • Navigate power and governance structures 

  • How to manage difficult relationships and learn when and how to push back 

  • Create a clear scope for your work and communicate it effectively

How it works

All classes are delivered live and online in small classes that are a mix of taught tuition, individual exercises, and group discussion

Participants work on a service or case study of their choice so all course takeaways are able to be put into action immediately

 

Course modules

 
  • Understand the reasons why organisations struggle to be user focused and identify the blockers and barriers to user-centred design in your organisation

    Learn to define ‘services’ and how to mitigate the confusion or conflict of moving to a service-led way of thinking in your organisation 

    Understand the challenge of helping our organisation to see, understand and deliver services as your users see them

  • Learn how to identify the task you've been given by your organisation and how this might differ from what’s actually needed 

    Learn how and when to safely challenge your brief using techniques from hypothesis-driven design to setting criteria for success 

    Learn to prioritise and sign off outcomes at the start of a piece of work

    Create a clear set of prioritised outcomes for your work to agree with your stakeholders

  • Understanding the importance of relationships to getting service design to scale in your organisation

    Understand the needs of your stakeholders and how to tailor your work so that they feel confident in what you’re doing

    Learn how to map your stakeholders and use this to shape the direction of your work

  • Identify the difficult decisions that might need to be made in your service 

    Understand who can make decisions, and how and when those decisions get made

    Learn about the different decision making models organisations use and how this affects the way you need to work

    Identify the right forums and processes for the types of decisions you need to make in your service 

  • Understand the tools and techniques that will enable you to get buy-in with your stakeholders in the short, medium, and long term

    Identify the right communication channels and tools to engage your stakeholders

    Learn how to communicate in a language that will resonate with your stakeholders - in money, risk, or outcomes 

  • Understand and map the dangers to maintaining continued buy-in for you work

    Learn how to create a governance framework that will maintain stakeholder engagement over time

    Create a compelling comms plan and learn how to build ground-up momentum for your work

    Learn to manage and communicate risk, blockers, and barriers to your stakeholders

    Creating a long term plan for change where buy-in changes or is removed 

    Techniques to rescue buy-in and manage work where you can't get buy-in

  • Understand your role in long term change

    Learn when and how to let go, re-focus your efforts or purpose in difficult situations

    Learn how to personally challenge situations

    Identify where and you can find safety in your work

Public dates

Live public courses are available twice a year

 


Want to train your whole team?

We’ve helped 100s of organisations develop the service skills they need to deal with toughest environments. Whatever your challenge, we’re here to help your team fulfil their potential