When I was working at HubSpot, one of the most popular tools (if not the most popular) for project management was the DARCI model. 

It almost became synonymous with project management because it allowed to define who to work with and in what capacity when you needed to execute on a project or an initiative in an organisation that is quite complex when it comes to working cross-functionally.

But the DARCI framework is just a part of project management if you choose to use it. There's so much more to managing a project as I've covered previously so with this post I want to explain what the DARCI model is and give you my recommendation on how and when to use it. 

So what's DARCI in Project Management?

DARCI stands for Decision-Maker, Accountable, Responsible, Consulted and Informed.

There are other versions of it such as RACI which is what you'll find in PMI's PMBOK for project management. RACI is the same as DARCI but excludes the Decision-Maker.

In essence, the DARCI framework serves to identify the roles and responsibilities of a given project.

I've worked in Customer Experience or CX most of my career. 

My current job at Cisco is in CX, my first two and a half years at HubSpot were in Customer Success followed by two+ years reporting into Sales and before HubSpot I held several account manager roles in agencies which I'd still count as CX since I was responsible for the success of my client's PR campaigns and social accounts post their purchase of our services. 

Has it been easy to work in CX? Not always. And I'll tell you why. 

Traditionally, the powerful function of a company has been Sales. Sales has usually had the final decision-making and driven the company forward simply because Sales brings the money which is what execs look at. 

But over the last few years, there's been a shift towards the need for a stronger CX focus and organisation and I've seen first-hand how companies are beginning to invest a lot more in CX and listen to what CX has to say. 

As HubSpot's flywheel explains, existing customers have become the biggest source of new business and hence growth.

But few companies have transformed their business models and how they operate to reflect this new reality and nurture the customer journey.

One of the most important areas of project management or any work that involves people for that matter is stakeholder management.

In fact, the main reason why projects fail is the lack of good stakeholder management.

There are a ton of tools you can use to identify your stakeholders and perform a stakeholder analysis. 

I've often used such tools not just to manage projects but also whenever I'd started a new position. It's hugely important to know who your main stakeholders are, who your supporters are, who the people that you can learn from are and who your potential challengers would be. You need to know how they tick, what's important to them, how they like to communicate and make decisions and how they like to work with others. 

Today, I want to show you a model for stakeholder analysis that I learned about when I was studying for the PMI certification. 

It's called the salience model and serves as a tool to define and analyse stakeholders for your project.

What is the Salience Model for Project Management?

I was a speaker at a fantastic event called DigitalK earlier this year in Sofia that was all about digital and digital transformation. 

As I'm starting a new job at Cisco next week and because Cisco is all about digital transformation, I wanted to look at various things I've written and participated in about and around digital so I remembered this interview I did prior to the conference in Sofia. 

Take a look at what digital means to me and how I see it impacting the business world. 

5 Questions About Digital

How do you see the world in 5 years?

Earlier this year, I had the pleasure of doing a presentation at a great inbound marketing event in London organised by Whitehat SEO. 

It was a terrific audience, a terrific venue and a really fun experience. 

As always, the topic of my talk was Inbound PR. And this was probably one of the best presentations I've given on the topic which is why I want to share the recording of the talk with you today. 

In the video, you'll learn about: 

• why Inbound PR 
• how Inbound PR came about
• the 8 key steps you need to take to create your first Inbound PR strategy or campaign

Take a look: 

What You Need to Know About Inbound PR in 40 Minutes [Video]