[RBM+E] Whom to engage on examples.

How to find the right people to make sure that we are proposing something valuable.

Okay, this is an extended version of my post that should land in your inbox just 2 hours ago. Partially free and partially paid with extra content.

The RAPID framework (Recommendation, Perform, Inform, Approval, Decision) provides a structured approach to engaging the right people at the right time. Today I'll briefly introduce each component and how to find the right people for its stages:

• Recommendation: Who can champion your initiative? Who will be interested in promoting your proposal?

• Perform: Who will implement and use the solution? Who will want and why, many times it's not who you think should be?

• 🔐Inform: Which stakeholders need to provide information or stay updated? Why is too much just too much?

• 🔐Approval: What formal sign-offs are required? Why so many approvals needed?

• 🔐Decision: Who has the final authority to proceed? How to make them your promoters?

To illustrate these concepts, I'll examine two real-world scenarios: a CRM replatforming project and the implementation of a centralized CI/CD center of excellence, similarly to free post but in many more details.

This overview sets the stage for the detailed analysis available to paid subscribers, where we'll dive deep into stakeholder identification strategies and provide actionable frameworks for your modernization initiatives.

Recommendation - who can be promoter of your proposal

Finding the right promoters for your initiative is critical to its success. These stakeholders will champion your cause, advocate for resources, and help navigate organizational politics. Without strong promoters, even the most promising initiatives can stall or fail entirely due to lack of support, funding, or organizational buy-in. Effective promoters aren't just passive supporters—they actively push your agenda forward when you're not in the room and help overcome resistance from skeptics.

Photo by Maayan Nemanov on Unsplash

In the CRM replatforming example, your best promoters might be sales leaders frustrated with the current system's limitations or executives seeking better customer insights. Sales directors who lose deals because they can't access customer information quickly enough, account managers struggling with duplicate data entry, or marketing leaders who can't properly segment customers for campaigns are all potential allies. These stakeholders feel the pain of the current system daily and can articulate concrete business impacts that resonate with decision-makers. You might think they're far removed from technology, but as I've written in previous posts, you need to articulate ROI in business objectives, and the best people to do this are business professionals who speak this language. Your initiative must be the solution they've been waiting for.

For the CI/CD center of excellence, look to engineering managers struggling with deployment bottlenecks or CTOs focused on delivery speed. Development team leads who consistently miss release dates due to manual processes. Product managers frustrated by the time it takes to get features to market, or operations teams dealing with frequent production issues from poor deployment practices, all have skin in the game. Their firsthand experiences with the problems you're solving make their advocacy particularly compelling. Again, those closer to business, like Product Managers, are better because they articulate real business issues. Remember that IT is increasingly moving away from being considered an alternative world living on its terms. Those days are ending—IT must deliver hard business value or face reduction.

The key is identifying individuals who have both influence and a vested interest in your solution's success. These people exist at the intersection of authority and pain—they feel the difficulty acutely and have the organizational capital to do something about it. Take time to understand the political landscape and identify who has formal and informal power to move your initiative forward.

Don't just target the highest-ranking executives—find the respected voices whose issues your initiative directly solves. Sometimes a well-respected mid-level manager with strong peer relationships can be more valuable than a distant executive. Seek people known for successfully championing other initiatives, as they likely understand how to navigate your organization's approval processes and cultural nuances.

Perform - Who will want to implement it and why maybe not IT?

Implementation is where many initiatives face their toughest challenges, particularly when IT departments become resistant rather than supportive. This resistance isn't irrational—it's often rooted in legitimate concerns about workload, job security, and perceived value.

IT teams frequently view new initiatives as "yet another project" piled onto their already overflowing plates. When automation or modernization initiatives are proposed, many IT professionals see a direct threat: "If this process becomes automated, what happens to my role?" This fear isn't unfounded. A CI/CD pipeline that replaces manual deployments or a CRM that streamlines customer data management genuinely reduces the need for certain traditional IT functions.

Photo by Alex Kotliarskyi on Unsplash

The resistance manifests in subtle ways: delayed responses, excessive focus on edge cases, or raising theoretical problems without offering solutions. You'll hear phrases like "that won't work in our environment" or "we tried something similar years ago." These objections often mask the underlying concern: "This makes my current skills less valuable."

To overcome this resistance, you must reframe the conversation from replacement to evolution. Show IT teams how the initiative creates opportunities for higher-value work. For example, when implementing a CI/CD center of excellence, emphasize how deployment engineers can transition from manual release management to designing sophisticated deployment architectures or developing advanced automation strategies.

In the CRM replatforming scenario, demonstrate how database administrators can evolve from managing customer record conflicts to architecting data models that drive business intelligence. Position the change as an opportunity to develop expertise in a modern platform rather than losing control of a legacy system.

Identify clear growth paths for affected roles. The deployment engineer can transform into a DevOps architect building next-generation delivery pipelines, or even a platform specialist.

Involve IT early in designing the implementation approach, not just executing a predetermined plan. When they contribute to shaping the solution, they develop ownership and can align the implementation with their career aspirations. Create opportunities for them to showcase their expertise by solving complex aspects of the implementation.

Build career evolution pathways directly into your proposal documentation, complete with specific timelines and allocated training resources. This approach shows stakeholders that role transformation isn't just theoretical—it's a concrete deliverable that will be measured alongside technical milestones. Enterprise stakeholders typically care about how they're perceived and whether they demonstrate concern for their people. Use this to your advantage rather than viewing it as a challenge.

Remember that IT professionals often take pride in being technical problem-solvers. Appeal to this identity by positioning the initiative as a technical challenge worthy of their skills. Frame automation not as simplification but as sophistication—building systems that handle complexity invisibly rather than requiring constant manual intervention.

The most successful implementations occur when IT sees the initiative as an opportunity to escape the maintenance trap and build something genuinely innovative. Your job is to help them visualize this future and their elevated place within it. Remember, some people still won't be happy, and a few might even leave after your proposal is implemented. This is natural, and you shouldn't feel responsible for all of them. They have choices, and they've made their decisions.

Inform - Why too much information is just too much?

Information overload is the quickest way to kill momentum for your initiative. When stakeholders receive excessive documentation, lengthy emails, or too many technical details, they often respond by not responding at all. The "Inform" component of RAPID isn't about broadcasting every detail to everyone—it's about strategic transparency with delivering the right information to the right people at the right time.

Create tiered information packages: executive summaries for leadership, impact assessments for affected teams, and detailed technical documentation only for those who need it. Remember that most stakeholders don't need to understand how the engine works—they just need to know where the car is going and when it will arrive. Resist the urge to demonstrate your thoroughness by overwhelming people with data. Instead, show your strategic thinking by delivering precisely what each stakeholder needs to stay aligned without drowning in details.