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Project Stakeholder Management is concerned with communicating with project stakeholders in order to understand and meet their needs.

Quick reference

Project Stakeholder Management

Project Stakeholder Management is concerned with communicating with project stakeholders in order to understand and meet their needs.

When to use

Stakeholders are engaged with the project from the very first day until the very last.  Different stakeholders will take on a more important role at various stages in project lifecycle.  Customers or senior management will initially approve or authorize the project which starts the project management activities.  Customers or users will receive the final goal of the project near the end of the project and senior management should be involved with the lessons learned and project closeout activities.

Instructions

Project Stakeholder Management

“Project Stakeholder Management includes 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 executionn.” PMBOK® Guide

Every project has stakeholders.  Stakeholders can be a great benefit to a project when they provide clarity, focus, and rapid decisions.  They can also create havoc in a project if they are disengaged, sending unclear direction, in conflict with each other, and using the project as a political toy to serve other agendas.  I have seen it both ways.  The project manager needs to engage with all the key stakeholders who can influence the scope, resources, or acceptance of the project.  Their needs and concerns must be understood and addressed as best as the project can and still remain within its constraints.  This often requires strong interpersonal and communication skills.

Project Stakeholder Management Processes

There are four Project Stakeholder Management Processes.  They relate to each other as shown in the diagram below.  The four processes are:

  • 13.1 Identify Stakeholders: “The process of identifying project stakeholders regularly and analyzing and documenting relevant information regarding their interests, involvement, interdependencies, influence, and potential impact on project success.” PMBOK® Guide
  • 13.2 Plan Stakeholder Engagement: “The process of developing approaches to involve project stakeholders, based on their needs, expectations, interests, and potential impact on the project.” PMBOK® Guide
  • 13.3 Manage Stakeholder Engagement: “The process of communicating and working with stakeholders to meet their needs and expectations, address issues, and foster appropriate stakeholder involvement.” PMBOK® Guide
  • 13.4 Monitor Stakeholder Engagement: “The process of monitoring project stakeholder relationships and tailoring strategies for engaging stakeholders through the modification of engagement strategies and plans.” PMBOK® Guide

 

Stakeholder Management Tools

Stakeholder management is the newest and least mature of the knowledge areas within the PMBOK® Guide.  That is not to say we haven’t had to manage stakeholders all along, but rather, there is an increased emphasis on the importance of managing stakeholders to the success or failure of the project.  Let’s be clear.  Typically you are not “managing” the stakeholders.  In fact, in your company’s organizational chart, they are more likely to be managing you.  What you do need to manage is how you interact with the stakeholders.  That is the real focus of this knowledge area, it is stakeholder interaction management, or stakeholder engagement.

The best and most important way to interact with stakeholders is to talk with them.  Establish a relationship with each of your key stakeholders.  Trust is built over time by a series of interactions.  You want them to trust you and you should trust them.  That will require a relationship. 

There are a variety of tools that can be used to help you manage your interactions with the stakeholders.  I am including two here, but there are many others.  The best recommendation is to use the ones you are familiar with.

Before I get to the two tools, let me emphasize that on large projects you need a stakeholder register to keep track of your stakeholders.  On small projects you may only have two or three stakeholders and a register seems like overkill.  But on large projects you could easily have 20 or 30 stakeholders and a register is very helpful.  One thing I include in my register is the stakeholder’s personal goal or objective for the project.  This information is very helpful when using the two tools below.

The Power/Interest/Attitude Cube, also known as the stakeholder cube, gives the project manager guidance on how they should be interacting with each stakeholder.  Plot the level of interest or concern for the project, their power or authority over project resources and decision points, and their current attitude towards project - either positive or negative.  You should periodically update this because their interest, power, or attitude may change over time.  The corner of the cube where they fall will give you an indication of the interaction strategy.

The second tool is the Engagement/Assessment Matrix.  In this tool you decide whether you need to change your interaction approach and then determine the actions you will take.  Sometimes a stakeholder is not engaged, or even worse they have a negative opinion of the project. Their lack of interest and support is causing delays or resource problems.  When that happens this matrix can clarify where the problem is and what you should do about it.  List the stakeholders and plot which column they are currently in and which you need them to be in.  Look for gaps.  Where there are gaps, determine what could be done to close the gap. 

Sometimes it is necessary to replan or reprioritize project work so that their objective for the project is more prominent.  Sometimes it is a change in the communication or interaction approach that is being used.  In some cases they may want to support the project but are not able, so consider how you could remove or reduce some of the constraints.  You may even want to identify which stakeholder who is strongly supporting the project can meet with them and influence them to change their behaviour.  I find this is a good diagnostic tool for improving stakeholder relationships.

Project Management Institute, A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge, (PMBOK® Guide) – Sixth Edition, Project Management Institute, Inc., 2017, Figure 13-6, Page 522 and Glossary definitions pages 708, 710, 711, 713 and 717. PMBOK is a registered mark of the Project Management Institute, Inc.
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  • 00:05 Hello, I'm Ray Sheen.
  • 00:06 It's now time to talk about the project stakeholder management knowledge area.
  • 00:11 The Project Management Body of Knowledge, the PMBOK Guide, defines this as, project
  • 00:16 stakeholder management includes the processes required to identify the people,
  • 00:20 groups or organizations that could impact or be impacted by the project to analyze
  • 00:25 stakeholder expectations and their impact on the project, and
  • 00:29 to develop appropriate management strategies for
  • 00:31 effectively engaging stakeholders in project decisions and execution.
  • 00:36 Wow, that's a mouthful.
  • 00:38 But it means that this knowledge area focuses on managing the interactions and
  • 00:42 relationships that the project has with everyone who cares about this project.
  • 00:47 This knowledge area is closely aligned with communication processes.
  • 00:51 In fact, earlier versions of the PMBOK Guide,
  • 00:53 this was part of the communication knowledge area.
  • 00:56 A key item to remember about the PMBOK Guide definition of stakeholders
  • 01:00 is that it includes team members as stakeholders.
  • 01:03 In many companies, when you use the term stakeholder, you mean management, users,
  • 01:07 and customers.
  • 01:08 But in the PMBOK Guide, it also includes the team members.
  • 01:12 There are four project stakeholder management processes.
  • 01:15 The first one is, identify stakeholders and that's just what the title says,
  • 01:20 identify the all the different stakeholders for this particular project.
  • 01:23 The next is to plan stakeholder engagement.
  • 01:25 Based upon the set of stakeholders, this determines the policies, procedures,
  • 01:29 and templates that will be used for communicating and
  • 01:32 interacting with the stakeholders.
  • 01:34 Then we manage stakeholder engagements.
  • 01:36 Now, just to be clear, we're not playing match maker and
  • 01:39 helping stakeholders getting engaged with their life partners.
  • 01:42 We're talking about managing how the stakeholders become involved or
  • 01:47 engaged with the project teams.
  • 01:49 The stakeholders will be involved in decision making or
  • 01:52 in the review of the project.
  • 01:53 And these interactions must be managed.
  • 01:56 Finally, monitoring the engagement process, this is dealing with any problems
  • 02:00 that come up with respect to stakeholder interactions and
  • 02:04 making whatever changes are needed on the project.
  • 02:07 There are several tools that are often used for planning and
  • 02:10 managing stakeholder engagement.
  • 02:11 Well, I'd like to highlight two of them because I feel they may be used
  • 02:14 on the PMP exam.
  • 02:16 The first is the stakeholder cube, the map stakeholders across three characteristics,
  • 02:21 power, interest, and attitude.
  • 02:24 This is represented by a three dimensional cube with the stakeholders being
  • 02:28 either high or low with respect to each of these three characteristics.
  • 02:32 I won't go through all the corners of the cube, but
  • 02:35 you can see that based upon the level of power, interest, and attitude, and
  • 02:39 engagement approach is suggested.
  • 02:41 So let's look at the top left corner in the back.
  • 02:43 This individual is low interest but high power and a positive attitude.
  • 02:49 It's a stakeholder who would really like your project and
  • 02:51 can help it succeed if they only knew more about it.
  • 02:54 So our engagement strategy is to get them to focus on the project and its goals.
  • 02:58 And by doing that we win their active support.
  • 03:01 By the way, when assessing your stakeholder,
  • 03:04 what they do is more important than what they say.
  • 03:06 If they say they're very interested but never attend to a meeting or
  • 03:09 respond to a query, well they're really not all that interested.
  • 03:14 The second tool is the stakeholder engagement assessment matrix.
  • 03:17 This tool is used to determine which stakeholders are not as engaged and
  • 03:20 supportive as you need for project success and what to do about that.
  • 03:25 The stakeholders are listed in the first column of the matrix.
  • 03:28 Their support is then assessed to be either leading, supportive, neutral,
  • 03:32 resistant, or unaware.
  • 03:34 Just a word of caution, when I use this, I assess the stakeholder's engagement
  • 03:38 based upon what they actually do and not what they say.
  • 03:41 The current level of support is shown with the letter C.
  • 03:44 The desired level of support is shown with the letter D.
  • 03:49 When there is a gap, I determine what action is needed to close the gap.
  • 03:53 In this case, stakeholder 1 is unaware but needs to be supportive.
  • 03:58 So, I've scheduled a meeting with that stakeholder to make them aware and
  • 04:00 gain their support.
  • 04:02 Stakeholder 2 is neutral and needs to be leading.
  • 04:05 Let's say that after investigating why they're neutral I find that while they
  • 04:09 like the project, it's creating a conflict with another project that they support.
  • 04:13 By changing my schedule, I can remove the conflict and
  • 04:16 gain their leadership support.
  • 04:18 Stakeholder 3 is supportive, and that's right where they need to be, so
  • 04:21 no action is required.
  • 04:23 You may see some PMP exam questions
  • 04:26 that use either of these tools to set the context for the question.
  • 04:30 So let's take a look at how these processes are linked together.
  • 04:33 I'm showing the plan stakeholder engagement in the traditional knowledge
  • 04:37 area planning spot.
  • 04:38 This process creates the stakeholder engagement plan,
  • 04:41 which is incorporated to the project management plan and
  • 04:43 is then used as an input for all the other processes.
  • 04:47 But that process is a planning process, and
  • 04:50 in this knowledge area we do have an initiating process that would have
  • 04:53 occurred even before the project planning begins, and that's identify stakeholders.
  • 04:58 The list of stakeholders, which is recorded on the stakeholder register and
  • 05:02 is a project document, sets the stakeholder landscape for the project.
  • 05:07 But keep in mind,
  • 05:08 this list will likely change several times over the life of the project.
  • 05:12 So we find that this process and the executing process manage stakeholder
  • 05:17 engagements and the controlling process monitor stakeholder engagements
  • 05:21 are periodically creating updates to project documents in particular,
  • 05:26 this stakeholder register and updates to the project management plan.
  • 05:30 Stakeholders are at the beginning of the project identifying the goals and
  • 05:34 objectives, and they're still around at the end of the project accepting
  • 05:38 the product, service, or result that was created.

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