I offered four possibilities, as follows:
1. 1.
Make sure you have a compelling problem that
will help the person when solved. Define
the product stakeholders and when asking for an appointment or a meeting start
with the problem. If the problem is compelling and affects the person, they
will want to provide information for solution. If not, they will not want to
spend their time
2. 2/
Make sure they are affected (or impacted) by the
problem or solution. If they don’t want to talk to you it may be because the
person who told you to “go talk to them” gave you an erroneous name. 3. The person really doesn’t have information
for you and is trying to avoid having a political situation where their boss
says they have information they don’t have
3. 3.
If they are resistant to a face to face, define
the information you want and let them know what information you are looking
for. Sometimes people are hesitant to talk to you because they don’t think they
have answers and don’t want to appear stupid.
Or they are afraid they will be asked a question they would prefer not
answering, such as about how things are going in the process. Giving them the information you want in
advance may put them at ease and give them a chance to prepare a bit. It also
might be beneficial if they don’t have that information. They can then tell you
they don’t have it and maybe reference someone who does.
4.
4. Go back to the problem owner and ask for the
information. If the problem owner refers to the person who is being resistant,
tactfully relate that you cannot get with that person. At that point one of three things will
happen: 1) the problem owner will get that person to talk to you or give you
the information, 2) the problem owner will refer you to someone else with the
information, 3) the problem owner will get you the information him or herself.
In any case, you get the information.
