Katie Bauer!

Juniors need more help structuring work and identifying relevant datasets and techniques. Stakeholders rarely know the difference (and probably don't even know the level of a DS), so it might not occur to them that a given DS really IS spending all their time on an project

Third: the interests and morale of your team can have a big impact on how much effort they give to a stakeholder request. Stakeholders might not care if a DS feels like a project is growing their skills, or if the DS feels burnt out from always fielding urgent inbounds

But they CAN tell if a DS's heart is not in something. Interest and morale are more visible to them than the former two points, and even if they're getting what they need from a DS, they may still think a DS is not spending enough time on their work if the DS seems unengaged

Thus, DS managers should keep an eye on interest and morale. You can't always give your team the work they most want, but when the team can give energy to a project it's perceived as spending the right amount of time on it, even if the DS is spending a lot of time on other things

And fourth is the compatibility of a DS and their stakeholder. Not every pairing of personalities will work well together, and as a DS manager, you can only do so much to smooth that over.

There are many ways that a chronically unhappy team member makes your life as a manager difficult. And a stakeholder who's dissatisfied with the level of service they receive from that unhappy DS can also find many ways to make life hellish

If your team is unhappy or your stakeholders are unhappy, you're in for a rough time, and it only gets rougher when they're at each other's throats. If working with a stakeholder makes a DS bristle, the stakeholder will think a DS is using their time poorly almost no matter what

Avoiding personality mismatches is a good way to control perceived utilization rates up front, and in general, will save the manager a lot of interpersonal-drama-induced headaches.