Stay on Target
I get a kick out of working on projects. You get to work with a talented group of people on a focused topic, learn new skills and (hopefully!) have some fun. You also tend to find a whole lot of OTHER things that should get done in the process, things that are really tempting to go work on. Things that should only take a moment, or are really important. Things that if you go and do will remove all focus on your project and make a mess of things. We call these things scope creep.
While scope creep certainly occurs, I find it most insidious during meetings. Typically we’ll be on track to deliver an update, or walk through some new functionality, when someone will come out of nowhere and ask about something unrelated to the project. Maybe it’s a known-bug in the code, or maybe it’s an enhancement that isn’t included in the scope. Or maybe it’s something entirely new. Regardless, the stakeholder is VERY keen on talking about it and wants it worked on… what do you do?
Since you’re in a live meeting, ignoring them entirely is basically impossible... after all, everyone just heard them bring it up. Others will also like jump in and add to the story, maybe it impacts more folks than the first stakeholder thought, or someone offers a “helpful” update on it that just lets things spiral more. I’ve found a number of different ways to address this situation, and while there’s always options the last is my preferred:
Shut them down - This can be an option if you need to immediately stop a discussion, but it has its risks. Shutting someone down risks damaging your relationship with them, and it may not actually get them to stop in the call… they may just end up continuing to bring up their topic, only now they’re aware you’re not interested in helping.
Let them continue - I tend to use this option… for a time. Redirecting or stopping the discussion too early can result in the individual being frustrated they aren’t being heard. Letting them go too long risks them taking over the meeting and feeling like they can just keep going.
Ask someone else to handle them - Depending on the scenario it may be best for someone not you to step in. This may be in cases where you don’t yet have a relationship with the stakeholder, or if this other person has a stronger/unique relationship they can use. The challenge here is having the right person available, and having them available to step in. This also prevents you from gaining the experience of working with the stakeholder and building a relationship - but may be more expedient.
Address their concern in the meeting - Being direct and addressing the concern in the meeting is useful in cases where it’s a super critical concern, directly related to the topic at hand or someone is incredibly escalated. This does raise the risk of the meeting getting taken over by this topic, and can result in that stakeholder feeling comfortable taking over other meetings.
Acknowledge their concern and defer it to another time - This is my preferred method of addressing out of scope topics that come up during a call. Acknowledging the concern is great because it communicates to the stakeholder that you understand there IS a concern. Bringing it up during the meeting also demonstrates you understand its (perceived) importance. The catch is to defer the issue to another time… taking time from the in-scope meeting to address this concern is counter productive, so moving it to some point in the future allows you to address the challenge and keep the current focus.
