Customer Engagement Planning

The customer is not one person. The source describes it as at least four stakeholder roles: sponsor, blocker, line user, and regulator.

Programming

Who Do You Ask First?

Most people picture a customer as one party: a company, a buyer, or a single decision maker who asks for something and receives it. The picture is simple, and it is the starting point for a mistake that causes real trouble in customer engagements. The mistaken belief is that you can learn what the customer wants by finding one person and asking them.

What do you think happens?

When you start planning an engagement, how many people should you expect the customer to be?

One decision maker who speaks for the whole customer
Two or three people who usually agree with each other
At least four different stakeholder roles

Reveal answer

Answer:

At least four different stakeholder roles.

The source states that the customer is not one person. It describes the customer as at least four stakeholder roles: sponsor, blocker, line user, and regulator. Each one relates to the project in its own way.

The Four Stakeholder Roles

The source's central claim is that the customer is at least four different stakeholders: the sponsor, the blocker, the line user, and the regulator. Each one is a distinct role in the engagement. Because the source treats the customer as a set of roles rather than one entity, the right way to picture the customer is as a system of people, each relating to the project in a different way.

The source names the four roles but does not expand on each one in detail, so it is important to keep to what it states. The sponsor, the blocker, the line user, and the regulator are four different stakeholders. They have different interests and different levels of influence. That difference is the reason they must be identified separately. A plan that works for one of them can fail for another.

Which roles sit inside the customer organization, and how do they relate to one another and to the decision being made? All four roles belong to the same customer, and each one acts on the same proposal from its own position.

Following One Proposal Through the Roles

Consider what changes when a plan is built for one contact compared with a plan built for all four roles. A single-contact plan treats whichever person was reached as the whole customer. The source warns that this hides the blocker, the line user, and the regulator, and it can produce designs that one role approves and another defeats. The before and after view below shows the difference in what the planner can see.

What changes when a plan is built for one contact versus for all four roles, and where does the single-contact plan break? The single-contact view shows one approval and a blocker that stays out of sight, while the four-role view makes every role visible before the plan is made.

The single-contact plan breaks at the point where a role it never saw acts. If the blocker was never identified, nothing in the plan anticipates its resistance. The four-role view does not make the decision easier by itself, but it makes sure each role is known before the plan is shaped.

What a Stakeholder Map Records

A stakeholder map identifies each stakeholder and records what each one wants and what each one can do. The map is meant to answer three questions for each stakeholder: who they are, what they want, and what they can do. Each person on the map therefore gets their own entry, and the entries together describe the customer as a set of roles rather than as a single voice.

What fields does a stakeholder map hold for each person, and how do those entries link back to the engagement? Each stakeholder entry records who they are, what they want, and what they can do, and the whole map informs the engagement before the FDE acts.

Why Mapping Comes Before Acting

The source's sharpest statement is about what happens without a map. It describes an FDE who walks into an engagement without knowing who is who, what each person wants, and what each person can do. In the source's words, that FDE is operating blind. For this reason the source treats mapping as coming before acting: the planner builds the map first and only then makes decisions about the engagement.

A Single-Contact Plan in Practice

Worked example

Planning an engagement for one contact

A planner is asked to prepare an engagement proposal for a customer. The only person the planner has spoken with is a friendly contact who appears to like the idea. This is an illustrative scenario created for teaching, not a case from the source. Using the source's four roles, work out what the single-contact plan leaves out.

1
Identify the contact
The planner treats the friendly contact as the whole customer and builds the plan around that person's view.
2
List the roles the plan does not see
The sponsor, the blocker, the line user, and the regulator are all absent from the plan. The source says a single-entity view hides the blocker, the line user, and the regulator.
3
Predict where the plan can break
If the blocker or the regulator acts on the proposal, the plan has no answer prepared, because the roles were never mapped. The source warns that a design can be approved by one role and defeated by another.
4
Correct the approach
Before shaping the plan, the planner builds a stakeholder map that records who each role is, what it wants, and what it can do.

Result

The single-contact plan is blind to three of the four roles. Mapping all four roles first lets the planner see where each one can help or stop the proposal.

Mistakes Beginners Make

Common mistake
Treating the customer as a single decision maker
What it looks like
Assuming the buyer who answers the first call speaks for everyone who will use or approve the work.
Why it fails
The source states the customer is at least four stakeholder roles, and a single voice hides the others.
Do this instead
Identify the sponsor, the blocker, the line user, and the regulator as separate roles before deciding anything.
Common mistake
Assuming the approver is the only one who matters
Why it fails
The source says a design that one role approves can be defeated by another, so approval from one role does not settle the engagement.
Do this instead
Record what each role can do, including what the blocker and the regulator can do, not only the sponsor.
Common mistake
Writing the stakeholder map after the plan
Why it fails
The source says an FDE who enters without a map is operating blind, so the map is meant to come before acting.
Do this instead
Build the map first, then shape the plan around the roles it records.
Common mistake
Recording only who people are
Why it fails
The source says the map answers three questions for each stakeholder: who they are, what they want, and what they can do. Knowing identity alone leaves the planner unable to judge influence.
Do this instead
Give each entry all three answers.

Building a Map for a New Engagement

1
List the four stakeholder roles named in the source: sponsor, blocker, line user, and regulator.
2
For each role, write one line answering who this person is in the customer organization.
3
For each role, write what this person wants from the proposal.
4
For each role, write what this person can do to help or stop the proposal.
5
Only after the map is complete, draft the first version of the engagement plan.

MEDIUM

A proposal has been approved by the sponsor, but no one has spoken with the blocker or the regulator. Explain why the plan is not yet safe to carry out, using the source's claim about designs that one role approves and another defeats.

Hints

Think about what the source says happens when a design is approved by one role and defeated by another.
The source treats the four roles as distinct, with different interests and levels of influence.

Your attempt (not saved)

Key Takeaways

The source describes the customer as at least four stakeholder roles: sponsor, blocker, line user, and regulator, not as one person.
Treating the customer as a single entity hides the blocker, the line user, and the regulator, and can produce designs that one role approves and another defeats.
A stakeholder map identifies each stakeholder and records who they are, what they want, and what they can do.
The source treats mapping as coming before acting, because an FDE who enters an engagement without a map is operating blind.