Series · 5 lessons · 10 August 2026
Difficult Stakeholders and Hard Conversations: How to Handle the Conversations Most Analysts Dread
A stakeholder blocked one of my recommendations for three straight weeks, and every week the objection came back worded slightly differently, but never once…
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Day 1 · 5 min read
Most Stakeholder Conflict Is Not a Communication Problem
A stakeholder blocked one of my recommendations for three straight weeks, and every week the objection came back worded slightly differently, but never once…
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Day 2 · 5 min read
The Four Difficult Stakeholder Archetypes
After enough years of this work, almost every difficult stakeholder starts to look like a variation on one of four patterns, and the mistake most BAs make is…
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Day 3 · 5 min read
The SAID Framework for the Conversation You're Dreading
The conversation I dreaded most as a junior business analyst was telling a senior stakeholder that a deadline they had already announced publicly was not…
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Day 4 · 5 min read
Disagreeing Without Damaging the Relationship
The phrases that hold a boundary, and the ones that quietly give it away
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Day 5 · 5 min read
When to Escalate, and How to Do It Without Burning Bridges
For years I treated escalation as something close to an admission of failure, as if needing to bring in a manager meant I had not been good enough at the…