Four Gems from Adam Staffa
Tamara Adlin
✧ Product & UX Strategy Leader ✧ Executive Alignment Expert ✧ Innovation & Transformation ✧ Host, Corporate Underpants
How to Manage Tons of Stakeholders in Higher Ed, Government, and Nonprofit Projects
If you’ve ever been caught in the crossfire of multiple stakeholders, conflicting priorities, and mysterious roadblocks in higher education, government, or nonprofit organizations, welcome to the world of corporate underpants. These environments aren’t like tech-first companies, where decision-making is centralized and streamlined. Instead, they are highly collaborative, politically complex, and often resistant to change. In this episode of Corporate Underpants Live, guest Adam S. shares battle-tested strategies for managing large digital projects in organizations that weren’t built for digital.
💎 1. Politics Overrules Process Every Time
No matter how airtight your UX process is, how strong your product team is, or how clear your strategy is—if the stakeholders in your institution aren’t aligned, you’re doomed. Adam shares his experience leading a major web strategy project in higher education, where no one could agree on priorities, and the project stalled in endless meetings with different departments pushing conflicting agendas.
Why this matters for non-tech orgs:
Takeaway: If your stakeholders aren’t aligned, your project will hit a wall. Alignment work is the work—it’s not a “nice to have.”
💎 2. You Don’t Have to Manage—You Have to Align
Telling executives or department heads they’re wrong won’t get you very far in a nonprofit, government agency, or university. Instead, give them a way to see their misalignment for themselves. Adam used an alignment workshop (or “focus group” in higher ed-friendly terms) to get all the stakeholders in a room and surface hidden assumptions, clarify priorities, and prevent political tornadoes from tearing the project apart.
Why this matters for non-tech orgs:
Takeaway: You don’t “manage up” by forcing a decision—you do it by aligning early and letting stakeholders see where they aren’t on the same page.
💎 3. The Magic of Preemptive Alignment
One of Adam’s most brilliant moves? Instead of asking stakeholders to create user personas from scratch, he brought in rough, pre-defined personas and had them poke holes in them. By making it an exercise in improvement rather than creation, he reduced resistance and got faster buy-in.
Why this matters for non-tech orgs:
Takeaway: It’s easier for people to react than to generate from scratch. Give stakeholders something to push back on and watch them align themselves.
💎 4. A Homepage Redesign Without Mutiny? It’s Possible.
Adam’s second project was a homepage redesign—one of the most politically volatile projects in any large institution. This time, he applied alignment techniques from the start. The result?
Why this matters for non-tech orgs:
Takeaway: Investing a few hours in stakeholder alignment can save months of backtracking, rewrites, and political battles.
Final Thought: Alignment is Your Secret Weapon
Whether you’re in higher ed, government, or a nonprofit, your biggest project risks aren’t technical—they’re human. If you aren’t aligning stakeholders early, you’re setting yourself up for frustration, budget overruns, and endless rework. Adam’s approach shows that with the right alignment techniques, you can navigate complex governance structures, prevent political tornadoes, and actually get things done.
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