Managing Multiple Stakeholders & Internal Approvals
Projects involving multiple internal approvers — executives, compliance, IT, marketing — can face delays when approvals are needed from several people. This article provides practical guidance.
The Challenge
Every additional approver adds potential delay. Uncoordinated feedback from multiple stakeholders creates contradictory direction for our team and causes rework. The more stakeholders, the more internal co-ordination is needed before engaging us.
Best Practices
- Map stakeholders before kickoff: Identify everyone with approval authority over any aspect of the project
- Establish a decision hierarchy: Who has the final word when stakeholders disagree? Agree this before day one.
- Consolidate feedback: Your Project Lead gathers all stakeholder input and sends us one unified direction
- Internal alignment sessions: For major milestones, align internally before the Progressive Robot demo
- Set approval deadlines: Internal reviewers have a fixed window (e.g. 3 business days) to provide input
What We Need From You
One voice. Your Project Lead is the conduit — they gather and reconcile internal views before communicating to us. Where genuine disagreement cannot be resolved internally, escalate to your Project Sponsor first.