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What You Must Know About Stakeholder Management
Bonnie Cooper, PMP Why Stakeholder Management?
ne of the most critical aspects of project management is doing whats necessary and control relationships with all individuals that the project impacts. In this articl learn techniques for identifying stakeholders, analyzing their influence on the proj
developing strategies to communicate, set boundaries, and manage competing expectatio By successfully managing your stakeholders, you will be better able to keep a lid on scope ensure project requirements are aligned, understand tolerance for risk, and mitigate issue otherwise delay the project. Good stakeholder management is a testimony to your influen organization, and a key component to a healthy project environment.
Stakeholder Impact on Project Success
Effective project managers understand that to get results they must create an atmosphere enablement. This concept is reinforced in research published in The Standish Groups fa report which revealed that the majority of information technology projects fail, and for thos succeed, what constitutes the top reasons for success. The number one reason for proje cited as user involvement. Healthy user involvement is supported by an emphasis on qua relationships (trust and structure), expectation management (achievable metrics, timing), business communications (talking and writing plainly). Other stakeholder-based contribut success include executive support (visible sponsorship toward the core values of the proje emotional maturity of the project manager (ability to rally stakeholders to the common pur effective use of the organizations ecosystem (infrastructure, procurement, facilities, legal, support the project. Next is the process to help you define this universe of stakeholders and what is needed to support.
Identify Project Stakeholders
A stakeholder is the person, or organization that is actively involved in the project, or who may be positively or negatively affected by execution or completion of the project. A stake also exert influence over the project and its deliverables. An output of the initiation step o the charter which often includes a section listing the organizations functional areas involv project. So, early in the project startup process, you begin to uncover project stakeholder unsure, ask yourself who will contribute to this project, or, who will be affected by it? Thin business process for contributors, or the organizations political climate for potential impac forget to consider external partners. Work with your project sponsor and others close to t identify all potential stakeholders. Interview key project participants to help you uncover m stakeholders. Here is a list of common stakeholders to get you started: Project manager Project team members Project sponsor Resource managers Senior management Suppliers and vendors/subcontractors
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Customers Support staff Functional managers Users Community Government agencies/regulators Media / Marketing / Public Relations Shareholders
Conduct a Stakeholder Analysis
Your list of stakeholders can be very large, and you probably dont want to expend equal e energy on every stakeholder. Stakeholder analysis involves three key steps: Identify the relevant information for each stakeholder: relevant information are things particular interest in the project, their role in the project, their level of authority (positio and expectations of the project. Identify the potential impact or support of each stakeholder: this can be simple like u measures low and high. Assess how key stakeholders are likely to react to various situations: another measu sensitivity or high sensitivity Your analysis can be plotted into a 2x2 grid that shows the stakeholders relationship to th project. This helps categorize stakeholders and determine where project management sho efforts. It is also a key input into the communications, risk and scope plans. In the 2x2 grid, the X horizontal axis identifies the level of interest. This is the measure o they will be affected by the outcome of the project from low to high. The Y vertical axis of identifies the level of power. This is the measure of how much a stakeholder can affect th a project from low to high. So in a 2x2 grid there are four squares. Top left is high power, low interest: stakeholders who plot to this square should be ke Top right is high power, high interest: stakeholders who plot to this square should be closely. Bottom left is low power, low interest: stakeholders who plot to this square should be Bottom right is low power, high interest: stakeholders who plot to this square should informed. Suffice it to say, these are important artifacts to help the project manager, and because of nature of the information, shouldnt be shared or distributed widely.
Manage Stakeholders
As we can see, stakeholders vary in influence, expectations, and interests and all have th impact the project. The project managers goal is to leverage stakeholder relationships an coalitions that foster project success. Warning signs that stakeholder management is suff missed deadlines, scope creep, confusion, conflict, and churning. Often this is indicative priorities, a lack of focus, or a lack of commitment. In discussing these issues with projec always ask two questions: 1) what is the communications plan (how is information shared what is your project governance structure (how do people plug in, decisions get made, iss escalated)? The goal of a successful communications approach is to manage expectations and minim As much as possible, you are trying to manage the information that people get, their perce clarify the kind of feedback that you need in order to be effective in delivering the project. communications planning matrix takes the stakeholder analysis and identifies each stakeh stakeholder group, the role they play on the project, what must be communicated, when ( how (format of communication) and whether a response is required. At minimum, regular reports should be distributed to a wide audience. Then there are various more intimate w discuss project health, involve key players in getting decisions made, and sharing those d The project managers number one responsibility in the project is to communicate (> 90% and they must demonstrate flexibility in how that communication is delivered to best meet their stakeholders. Communication is one of the key factors that help keep stakeholders i
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R E S O U R CE C E N T E R
In terms of the governance structure, at minimum there is a core team and some level of s sponsor or multiple senior managers). Regular meetings are set up, roles and responsibi delineated, and it is clear how risks, scope changes, issues or other project impacts are e decisions. The project manager is leveraging this structure to ensure communications are roadblocks are removed, and stakeholder behaviors are monitored. Needless to say, the sponsor is very active and visible in project governance, especially to help keep all stakeh focused on their common goal. Even with all this planning, it is good to have special tactics to deal with different types of In his book, The Handbook of Program Management, James T. Brown describes different and these tactics, which may work better with one type of stakeholder than another, but a have in your toolkit: demonstrate competence buffer from the team advocate for those who cant ensure traceability of agreements, requests, or decisions make sure there is a structure to engage make visible lost time (or other impacts) due to delayed responses encourage delegation of authority if possible look for informal settings to access busy stakeholders Make sure to cultivate your ideal stakeholders and publicize their example to others. Show proactively prioritize, make themselves available, accept accountability, show an interest, motivate the team. This can be anyone from the powerful project sponsor to the shy but d teammate. In closing, what does success look like from a stakeholder point of view? Satisfied stakeh what they need, can see business value in the results, and identify your project as an ove experience.
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About the Author: Bonnie Cooper, PMP, is an instructor and subject matter expert for Corporate Education is also a twenty-year information technology professional, currently Program Director for t Massachusetts Medical Societys (MMS) Corporate IT Program Office. In her current role, responsible for coordinating the efforts of project teams, overseeing the implementation o standards, managing the corporate IT strategic plan, and leading the program to re-engine membership platform for MMS.
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