Don’t forget your team are stakeholders too
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Government
Learning & Development
An efficient Product Manager will dedicate a lot of time to understanding the motivations of stakeholders and what "good" looks like to them. This engagement ensures that stakeholders feel heard and involved. It builds trust and gives them confidence that you understand what it takes to get things right.
But what happens when this engagement isn’t effectively completed, or when internal stakeholders – your own team – aren’t heard? In this OpenPerspectives blog, Simon Hales, Senior Product Manager at Opencast, shares his perspectives on the challenge.
Most Product Managers invest a lot of work to develop and maintain their client relationships. Far fewer put the same effort into understanding their own team – the people who build the product. Have you ever made a product decision only to have a team member point out something you hadn’t considered? You’re not alone!
A few years ago, I worked in a team developing a self-service portal for social housing residents. We had a strategy to move 90% of transactions from phone calls to online and a clear plan of how to deliver it. We’d released an MVP and uptake was lacking.
Our designer suggested we talk to some residents to find out why. We learned there wasn’t anything wrong with what we’d built, it just didn’t meet their needs. When dealing with repairs to their home, users wanted to speak to a person to make sure they were heard.
How had something as critical as meeting user needs been missed when developing the strategy?
Listening carefully to our teams – our internal stakeholders - is as fundamental to success as is hearing from our external stakeholders.
Insights
Our role as Product Managers is to ensure the right product is built. We balance user needs with the priorities of the business, guiding the development and iteration of the product. A big part of the role is engaging with stakeholders who represent various areas of the business, for example customer services, sales, legal or senior leadership.
Business stakeholders often have requirements for the product that meet the needs of their area. It’s understandable—they’re measured on results and your product may help or hinder those outcomes. So Product Managers must truly understand their needs in order to make decisions informed by the potential impact on the business.
Internal stakeholders – Your team
External stakeholders aren’t the only people who have an interest in getting things right. Your team wants to get things right too. Have you dedicated the time to understanding what "good" looks like to them?
Too often, the people within your team are expected to accept decisions made without an understanding of the impact on their role. They’ll also be judged on the success of a product, and your decisions may limit their ability to do the job properly.
Just as it’s important to build trust with stakeholders, your team needs to trust that you’ll advocate for them and that you understand their concerns. They need to know you’ve considered the context and can provide an informed steer on how a decision affects them.
As a Product Manager, it's your responsibility to understand the impact of your decisions—not just on product delivery, but on your team, your stakeholders, the business, and ultimately the users.
What happens when impact isn’t understood
Product Managers will be familiar with the need to prioritise some "under the hood" development work to manage technical debt. The impact of not doing so is well understood—a poorly maintained codebase leads to unstable software and makes it increasingly difficult to add new functionality.
Consider whether you'd know the impact of these decisions — and whether you've engaged your internal stakeholders to find out:
Limiting user research or skipping it altogether
Introducing a new design pattern without validation
Adding more guidance when something is too hard to understand
Developing a product without considering the wider environment
Building a solution without defining how success will be measured
Focusing all your attention on meeting deadlines
In the private sector, the impact might show up as lack of product success. People may try the product but not continue to use it—and often, they have alternatives.
But in government, switching to another solution usually isn’t an option. You can’t choose a different place to apply for Universal Credit if the service isn’t right. This means the impact of your decisions is magnified.
Each of these decisions has a direct impact on your users:
Limited research may exclude certain user groups
New design patterns may not work with assistive technology
Complex language may exclude users with lower literacy or non-native English speakers
Disconnected services may make tasks impossible to complete
Reduced transactions may not clearly indicate success
Accessibility barriers may prevent people from using the service
Not being able to use a service could mean missing out on urgent support - real impacts on real people.
Meeting the service standard
Working in government makes informed decision-making even more critical. Digital teams are assessed against 14 Service Standards to ensure services are usable and meet user needs. Understanding what "good" looks like for your team is not optional.
Failing to do so could result in:
Lower service quality
Failing a Service Assessment
Being unable to launch your service
How do you understand what matters to your team? Think about how you engage with external stakeholders, seeking to understand:
Their motivations and concerns
How success is measured
How they want to work with you
Now apply that same approach internally!
Conclusion
The reality is that no service is developed without compromises. You will always need to make difficult decisions to balance conflicting priorities. However, having a strong understanding of what "good" looks like helps you to identify the gaps you're going to be leaving.
With this understanding you can manage risk while working in collaboration with your team. You can think creatively about how to fill those gaps. Importantly, you can choose to stand your ground with stakeholders when needed.
Being informed means you can influence from a place of strength. It gives you all the information you need to make the right decisions, even when there's not an easy answer.
Your team understands that there will be trade-offs. Showing you understand their views and value their input builds trust that you're making choices armed with all the information. Putting in the work to ensure your team feels heard means you maintain their confidence, even when they'd have preferred a different outcome.
It's easy to forget that your team are stakeholders too. Next time you're making a tricky decision, make sure you've considered its impact on everyone!
OpenPerspectives is our platform for Opencast people to share their thoughts and perspectives on modern digital delivery. It offers practical insight into user-centred design, engineering excellence, product leadership, data-driven decision making and building expert capabilities, grounded in real-world experience.
