John was at a loss. He had been working with the team for months to implement the new sales processes. Days before go-live, the Customer Service vice-president announced he would not allow the project to move forward. What went wrong?
As Project manager, John had ensured he had good sponsor support, had gotten buy-in from all the impacted departments and communicated cutover plans repeatedly. What more could he have done?
In hindsight, the problem became clear. Although the team had agreement on the new processes from each impacted department, they had not addressed the concerns and needs of all impacted stakeholders. There were within Customer Service who had serious concerns which had not been shared with the team.
John’s experience is not that unusual. Many project managers have made the costly mistake of thinking participation meant that the groups impacted by their project were engaged and in support of the project goals. Fortunately, we have the knowledge and have the tools to minimize this risk in our projects. This approach, commonly called Project Stakeholder Management, helps us ensure that all interested parties are actively involved and their relevant interests are addressed.
What is Project Stakeholder Management?
Project Stakeholder Management is a set of processes used to ensure that all groups and individuals who will be impacted by a project are identified and their concerns are appropriately addressed.
Who are Project Stakeholders?
Stakeholders are groups or individuals who will be impacted by the project or who have interest in the project outcome.
Stakeholders may be internal or external. Internal customers are members of the team or the business. This would include:
- the project requestor
- groups/individuals that will use the project results
- groups/individuals that will need to change their processes because of the project
- managers and executives
- the project team
- Subject matter experts
External stakeholders are outside of the business but will be impacted or have an interest in the project outcome. Example include:
- news agencies
- government or regulatory organizations
- vendors
- partners
- distributors
- customers
This list of stakeholders is not comprehensive, but it is a good representation of the types of individuals and groups who may need to be engaged in a project.
A word of warning, project teams may feel some of true stakeholders have no reason to be involved and be tempted to ignore them in order to move the project forward more quickly. If the interested group feels they should be considered and are not engaged, they can raise last minute objections and delay the entire effort.
What are the Steps of the Project Stakeholder Management Process?
Different authors will name the related processes and process steps with their own names, but the overall process is the same no matter what you call each step. For our purposes, let’s use the processes as defined in the Project Management Book of Knowledge, (PMBOK). The PMBOK identifies four Project Stakeholder Management processes
- Identify Stakeholders – identifying WHO are the stakeholders that needs to be involved in the project. This includes people or groups who will be impacted, need to provide input, and/ or are interested in the results.
- Plan Stakeholder Engagement – Developing and documenting HOW project stakeholders will be involved in the project.
- Manage Stakeholder Engagement – WORKING THE PLAN. This step involves working with the stakeholder and providing all necessary information to address their concerns and meet their needs.
- Monitor Stakeholder Engagement – Routinely assessing stakeholder relationships and adjusting approach, as necessary.
We will discuss each of these processes in more detail in future posts.
Stakeholder Connection 