“Soooo…where’s my stuff?” Stripped of the jargon, this was a perennial question of my management consulting career. Clients were often slow to fork over their data—and understandably so. They’ve got tons of stuff going on and consultants aren’t bosses. So, I always felt sheepish as the 23-year-old who’d have to drop by a semi-senior client’s office, and strike up the not-so-subtle conversation: “Hi Mark, how was your weekend…Great. Hey, did you get a chance to dig up those compensation figures for the sales force?”

In the moments prior to the conversation, I would sometimes imagine Mark reacting by forcefully shouting, “Hey Pete, I’m on it. And frankly, I resent you ‘casually dropping by’ and interrogating me. So, you think I’m not on top of my stuff? How dare you!”

Maybe, it’s an overly-active imagination, but I know many—Project Managers in particular—who wrestle with the diplomatic art of nagging / follow-up. So, below are several hard-learned suggestions for nagging like a master diplomat, or “diplonagging” if you will:

• Track the people and the timing. What do you really need? Who needs to give it to you? When do they need to give it to you? Having all this information immediately accessible in one centralized reference place makes all the difference. In the GTD system, this the Waiting For list. With it, you can follow-up at a leisurely cadence—instead of a panicked one.

• Bring forward the timing. When you’re setting the timing, go ahead and make the deadlines earlier than you think they need to be. Things will take longer than you expect. Or, you’ll later wish you had the flexibility to incorporate new feedback and iterations on what you receive.

• Clearly agree on deadlines. Some people don’t snap into gear until they’ve already passed a deadline. So, even if you have flexibility, agree on a firm deadline.

• Share context. What you’re doing is important and/or interesting (or maybe you should do something else ; ). Tell people their role in the master plan so they can get excited by it.

• Assume goodwill. Maybe they sent you email to you and your spam filter killed it. Maybe your instructions were ambiguous. There are dozens of reasons why you might not have received what you need. So while you may assume that the person is negligent, malicious, or slacking… DON’T! Instead, graciously share potential excuses for them within follow-up conversation.

• Follow-up quickly on odd silence. If you’re following up on an interim point that seems super-quick to execute (e.g. “make an email introduction), a 30-hour silence often means they forgot. Go ahead and prompt. It is often actually appreciated.

• Establish interim deliverables. Waiting, waiting, waiting for the giant final product usually results in sub-optimality. Use checkpoints instead.

• Be courageous. Much like delivering feedback, sometimes a follow-up requires summoning some internal fortitude. For the record, Mark never did lash out in the horrible ways I had imagined. So, just do it!

• Use different media. I can remember one client went so far as to use CAPITAL RED LETTERS in an email to me. So, I though she was totally furious. But once I dropped by for a face-to-face chat, she was a total sweetheart. Similarly, varying your follow-up approach across media (e.g. email, in-person, snail mail, phone, IM, text message, Skype) can boost your odds of getting through.

• Send thanks. “Thank you” is really the final follow-up. If you only show up when you need something, you’re nothing but a nag—by definition. Make it heartfelt and genuine.

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