Unveiling the Unsaid: The Power of Subtle Stakeholder Cues

When eliciting information from stakeholders, often what isn’t said can be as significant as what is said. Of course, the information that a stakeholder explicitly mentions is of crucial importance, but often there are subtle and nuanced details that aren’t obvious unless you look for them. Perhaps a stakeholder subtly pauses and looks uncomfortable and avoids answering a specific part of a question. Or perhaps they use a qualifying word like “usually” or “sometimes”. Either way, it is crucial to probe further and find out more.

Hearing What You Expect To Hear

Looking out for these clues is important, but is easier said than done, particularly when time is tight. When there are a number of stakeholders to speak to, it is easy to get drawn into a pattern of hearing what you expect to hear. We’ve probably all experienced this: after three people from different departments outline a process consistently, speaking to the fourth and fifth person seems like ticking a box. After all, they are going to just confirm what the first three people have described, surely?

That might be the case, but equally they might have additional insights that the original three did not. There is presumably a reason that they have been selected to participate in the elicitation activities, perhaps because they have a different perspective on things. Yet, it would be easy to let those discussions be swayed by the conversations that have happened before. To almost go on ‘autopilot’ and lead the stakeholder in a particular direction. It is worth being especially aware of those subtle cues and nuances in situations like this.

An Example

Imagine interviewing a stakeholder in a finance team about the invoice payment process. You’ve spoken to other stakeholders previously and you’re pretty sure you know the process:

“So, you get an invoice in, and as long as there’s a purchase order number on there, and as long as it’s approved, it gets scheduled for payment, is that right?”

“So, yes, mainly…. Yeah, mostly that’s it.”

It’d be easy to move on from this. It would be easy to assume that they are confirming some of the key decision rules (if an invoice has a purchase order number and has been approved, it gets scheduled).  But the stakeholder has added qualifying words: mainly and mostly.  These are easy to miss, but definitely require probing.

Probing might go like this:

“I noticed you said that this is mainly how the process works, are there other circumstances?”

“Yes, only very occasionally though. Sometimes, we get ‘proforma’ invoices that have to be paid immediately. We have a different process for those. Also, there are some cases where we pay up front by credit card. For example, booking training and conference places. That has a slightly different process too.”

Suddenly, a whole new set of facts becomes available. If this were a real situation, this would lead to further probing (e.g. “Are there any other times when the process operates differently?”, “Is there just one corporate credit card, and if so who is responsible for it” etc, etc).

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Make Sure They Feel Heard

Of course, probing this way is important to ensure that nothing crucial is missed. However, genuinely listening is important for another reason too: to ensure that people actually feel heard.

If you’ve ever had the experience of speaking to someone who appears to be preoccupied, and is perhaps presuming what your responses are, you’ll know that this rarely feels great. As analysts, it’s important that we empathize with and genuinely hear what people are saying.

Listening in this way will help uncover important information. It is a crucial and often taken for granted skill, but one that we can probably all hone and improve upon!