Course Description

Engaging with and managing stakeholders is important for anyone in business and is a particularly key skill for project managers, business analysts, and IS consultants.

Our Stakeholder Engagement course covers all the essential frameworks and principles you’ll need to know to become an expert in engaging your stakeholders. This includes working with stakeholder groups, creative problem-solving, managing conflict, and much more.

Target Audience

Business analysts, project managers, business change practitioners, and anyone in business who needs to engage with and manage stakeholders. Stakeholder Engagement is also a People Skills module on the BCS (ISEB) Advanced Diploma in Business Analysis.

Exam

During this two-day course, you’ll receive all the training you need to prepare for the BCS Professional in Stakeholder Engagement certificate exam, which is held on the final afternoon of the course. A pass in this module will contribute to the BCS Advanced International Advanced Diploma in Business Analysis.

The exam is included as part of the course cost. The multiple-choice exam consists of 40 questions with a pass mark of 26 out of 40. Currently, the exam must be taken remotely using the BCS online proctoring service.

Course Content

Understanding stakeholders

• Analysing stakeholders
• Stakeholder planning
• Stakeholder perspectives

Communication

• The communication process
• Barriers to communication
• Active listening

Working with stakeholder groups

• Group development process
• Learning styles

Facilitated workshops - introduction

• The benefits of facilitated workshops
• Main workshop roles – facilitator, scribe, participants, sponsor
• Stages of a workshop
• Workshop preparation
• Conduct of the workshop
• Facilitation techniques
• Adaptability in the workshop

Rapport

• Rapport defined
• Making an impact
• Building rapport
• Body language

Creative problem solving

• A model for creative problem solving
• Techniques for generating ideas
• Rich pictures
• Mind-maps
• Fishbone diagrams
• Stimulating creative thinking
• Edward de Bono’s ‘Six Thinking Hats’

Managing expectations

• Sources of expectations
• Controllable expectation creators
• Uncontrollable expectation creators
• Process for managing expectations

Negotiation

• Negotiating positions
• Principled negotiation approach
• The people problem
• Principled negotiation stages – interests, options, criteria
• Blocks to creative options in negotiation
• Integrative and distributive negotiation

Managing conflict

• The difference between negotiation and conflict situations
• Root causes of conflict – goals, judgements, values
• Options for conflict resolution
• Conflict resolution process
• Handling conflict