data.day
governance / security / stakeholder-management

The Monday Morning Surprise Stakeholder Who ‘Needs Everything’

A new advisor joins the project and demands 'Full Admin Access.' If you give it to them, you break the room. Give them the Advisor Package instead.

Paolo Pivot Paolo Pivot

The “Admin Access” Demand

It is Monday, 08:30. You are preparing for the weekly sprint. Notification: New User Request. Name: “John Smith, External Strategy Advisor.” Message: “Hi, just joined the team. Please open up the whole drive. I need to see the history.”

The Client Project Lead is CC’d. They look to you to solve it.

This is a dangerous moment. John doesn’t know the file structure. He doesn’t know that “Folder 99” is the messy sandbox. He doesn’t know that we renamed “Project X” to “Project Y.”

If you give him Admin Access, he will click around, get confused, and call the CEO saying, “This data room is a mess.” Or worse, he will drag a folder into another folder by accident and break the link for everyone else.

The Old Way: The Passive Compliance

Most Engagement Managers are afraid. They think, “He is a VIP. I must obey.” They click “Add User > Full Control.”

Then they spend the next week playing defense. John emails: “Why is this file from June different from the one in August?” You spend 4 hours explaining version history.

This is Friction. You are letting an outsider dictate your workflow. No grazie.

The Deliverable: The Advisor Package

We handle this with a standard protocol. We call it The Advisor Package.

  1. The Role: We assign the role: Viewer_External.

    • Permissions: View Only. No Delete. No Move.
    • Scope: Only 00_Index, 01_Final_Deliverables, and 02_Key_Data.
    • Hidden: 03_Working_Drafts, 04_Archive, 99_Admin.

  2. The Time-Box: I set his access to expire in 14 days. Why? Because advisors come and go. I don’t want a ghost user haunting my portal in six months.

  3. The “Request More” Path: I send the welcome email:

    “Welcome, John. I have provisioned your access to the Executive Review stream. This gives you immediate access to the signed-off deliverables and the core data model.

    If you need to dig into the historical archives or draft workings, simply click ‘Request Access’ on those specific folders, and I will clear it with the Project Lead.”

What just happened?

  • You looked professional: You have a system.
  • You protected the room: He can’t break anything.
  • You protected your time: He won’t ask about irrelevant drafts.
  • You gave him an out: If he really needs the archive, he can ask. But 99% of the time? He won’t.

He just wanted to feel important. You gave him a title (“Executive Review Stream”) and a clean view. Everyone wins. Assolutamente.

FAQs

Can I refuse an advisor hired by the Board?

You don't refuse. You curate. You say 'Yes, here is the curated view.' You frame it as efficiency, not restriction.

What if they get angry?

Blame the protocol. 'For security compliance, we provision access by role. I have assigned you the Senior Reviewer role.'

Does this slow them down?

It speeds them up. Giving them 1,000 files slows them down. Giving them the 10 that matter is a service.