13 Project Stakeholder Management

The processes required

• To identify the people, groups, or organizations that could impact or be impacted by the project,
• To analyze stakeholder expectations and their impact on the project, and
• To develop appropriate management strategies for effectively engaging stakeholders in project decisions and execution.

The processes support the work of the project team

• To analyze stakeholder expectations,
• Assess the degree to which they impact or are impacted by the project, and
• Develop strategies to effectively engage stakeholders in support of project decisions and the planning and execution of the work of the project.

Key Concepts for Project Stakeholder Management

Academic research and analyses of high-profile project disasters highlight the importance of a structured approach to the identification, prioritization, and engagement of all stakeholders. The ability of the project manager and team to correctly identify and engage all stakeholders in an appropriate way can mean the difference between project success and failure.

Stakeholder satisfaction should be identified and managed as a project objective. The key to effective stakeholder engagement is a focus on continuous communication with all stakeholders, including team members, to understand their needs and expectations, address issues as they occur, manage conflicting interests, and foster appropriate stakeholder engagement in project decisions and activities.

The process of identifying and engaging stakeholders for the benefit of the project is iterative.

Trends and Emerging Practices in Project Stakeholder Management

Include:

• Identifying all stakeholders, not just a limited set;
• Ensuring that all team members are involved in stakeholder engagement activities;
• Reviewing the stakeholder community regularly, often in parallel with reviews of individual project risks;
• Consulting with stakeholders who are most affected by the work or outcomes of the project through the concept of co-creation. Co-creation places greater emphasis on including affected stakeholders in the team as partners; and
• Capturing the value of effective stakeholder engagement, both positive and negative. Positive value can be based on the consideration of benefits derived from higher levels of active support from stakeholders, particularly powerful stakeholders. Negative value can be derived by measuring the true costs of not engaging stakeholders effectively, leading to product recalls or loss of organizational or project reputation.

Tailoring Considerations

Include:

• Stakeholder diversity. How many stakeholders are there? How diverse is the culture within the stakeholder community?
• Complexity of stakeholder relationships. How complex are the relationships within the stakeholder community? The more networks a stakeholder or stakeholder group participates in, the more complex the networks of information and misinformation the stakeholder may receive.
• Communication technology. What communication technology is available? What support mechanisms are in place to ensure that best value is achieved from the technology?

Considerations for Agile / Adaptive Environments

To facilitate timely, productive discussion and decision making, adaptive teams engage with stakeholders directly rather than going through layers of management.

Regular interactions with the stakeholder community throughout the project mitigate risk, build trust, and support adjustments earlier in the project cycle, thus reducing costs and increasing the likelihood of success for the project.

In order to accelerate the sharing of information within and across the organization, agile methods promote aggressive transparency. The intent of inviting any stakeholders to project meetings and reviews or posting project artifacts in public spaces is to surface as quickly as possible any misalignment, dependency, or other issue related to the changing project.

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