Stakeholders

Insert Name

Insert Institutional AffiliationDefine stakeholders and explain why they are important to a project

Stakeholders can be defined as the various individuals or organizations that are actively engaged with the project process or those whose interests are either negatively or positively affected upon execution or completion of the project (Snyder, 2013). These stakeholders include customers to the project, project sponsors, resource managers, the organization executing the project and the public. The interest of these stakeholders may be direct or indirect. Project stakeholders are important to the project for three main reasons. First, they might be sponsoring a project hence they have a financial interest in the project or are concerned about effective completion (PMBok 2013). Secondly, upon completion, or execution of the project they may have an interest or gain to attach. This especially applies to the customer of the project, executing organization and the individuals to benefit from employment when the project is in process. Thirdly, the stakeholders are important to the project because they may have a positive or negative influence in the process of project execution or completion. The society and the government are examples of stakeholders that mostly fall under the third consideration. Through government legislation, a project can stall or continue to completion. The government does (or is expected to) represent the interests of the general public or society hence they mostly have coincidence of interests in projects. Maylor (2010) argues that when stakeholders are put in groups, it is possible to come up with three main groups for the stakeholders as internal stakeholders, core external stakeholders and the rest of the world. Based on this classification, examples of internal stakeholders include financial managers, the legal and regulatory team, systems and human resources among other persons generally found in the internal environment of the executing organization. Similarly, external stakeholders include suppliers, consumers, the lobby groups, the media, unions, regulators and competitors. The rest of the others are the other stakeholders who have no direct interest in the project execution and completion.

Stakeholder Systematic Identification Process

In order to establish all the stakeholders to a project, the process should involve a systematic process that starts with identification of all stakeholders involved followed by identification of their interests and this may either be direct interests or indirect interests. After identification of the stakeholders’ interests, the next process is to identify the judgment criteria of the stakeholders and then identify which ones are needs and which ones are wants. Any potential conflicts must then be identified and resolved or ways of resolving such conflicts aptly identified (Mantel et al 2011). The next step is to evaluate the impact each stakeholder, their respective interests and the conflicts identified have on the project execution and completion. In the process of identifying the stakeholder interest, those stakeholders with low interest but high power in the project need to be kept sufficiently involved in the project execution because they are moderately priority group to the project (PMBoK, 2013). They need to be kept satisfied that the project is being executed as expected and that all aspects are under control (Maylor 2010). Stakeholders with high level interest and high power have the highest priority in the project and they need to be managed closely through active stakeholder engagement (Maylor 2010).

Still on the issue of stakeholder power and interest, stakeholders with low power and low interest in the project have the lowest priority for the project management and therefore they don’t need to be overloaded with communication. The project manager can monitor them with minimum effort. There are those with low power in the project but still have very high interest in it. This group should be a moderately priority group for the manager and therefore the project manager’s objective is to keep their interest going and weight them when it is deemed they are useful to the project (Burke, 2003). Lastly, there is need to identify what each stakeholder can do for the project. This means that each stakeholder’s contribution to the project has to be assessed and determine which stakeholder has a greater and key contribution to the projects execution and completion.

Describe various communication methods you might use to work with stakeholders to scope the project and its deliverables; for each method give an example of an appropriate project that could use that

The method adopted for communicating with the stakeholders depends mainly on the requirements of the stakeholders and the project and can range from phone calls, communicating through public forums, through interviews, via workshops where communication is through issues, and requirements among other ways (Meredith et al 2008). Communication may also be achieved through focus groups, and project chartering sessions. Public forums are essential where the project’s main consumers are the public or the public have key interest and high power in the project and therefore either need awareness or they need to be provided with progress reports and knowledge of the project. Phone calls are best for projects which do not have extensively technical details that have to be communicated or where the stakeholders have full information about the project and communication is only meant for minor or intermittent issues. Interviews are essential where the project demands for stakeholder feedback. Focus groups can be used for projects that have a certain group of stakeholders that comprises a lot of people and their interests are homogeneous.

What method/criteria would you use to rank stakeholders and identify the “key” ones?

The criteria and method for stakeholder ranking start with stakeholder identification where all stakeholders are listed as shown in the second section (Walesh, 2012).. This is followed by analyzing the stakeholders to gauge their perspectives and interests. Stakeholder mapping follows where the relationships to objectives between stakeholders are visualized. Stakeholder ranking then comes and this is achieved through assessment of stakeholder relevance and identifying key issues. As an example, key stakeholders can be identified through their requirements, what it is expected of them, their degree of influence and power, and communication strategy needed to engage them.

Give examples of how you could maintain contact with the “key” stakeholders during the project.

The table below gives examples of how to maintain contact with key stakeholders.

Figure SEQ Figure * ARABIC 1: Keeping Contact with Key Stakeholders. Source: Class Notes

References

Burke, R. M. (2003) Project Management: Planning and Control Techniques (4th Edition) John Wiley & Sons

Frame, J. Davidson, (2003) Managing Projects in Organizations: How to Make the Best Use of Time, Techniques, and People, 3rd edition, Jossey-Bass, ISBN 0-787-96831-5

Mantel, J. S., Meredith, J. R., Shafer, S. M. & Sutton, M. M. (2011) Project Management in Practice; 4th Edition. John Wiley & Sons

Maylor, H. (2010) Project Management. Financial Times Prentice Hall

Meredith, R. Jack and Mantel, Jr., Samuel J., (2008) Project Management: A Managerial Approach, 7th edition, Wiley, ISBN 0-470-22621-8

Project Management Institute- PMI (2013, A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge: (PMBOK’s Guide), 5th edition, PMI,

Snyder, C. (2013). A user’s manual to the PMBOK guide–fifth edition. 1st ed. Hoboken, N.J.: Wiley.

Walesh, S. G. (2012). Project Management: Critical Path Method and Scope Creep. Engineering Your Future: The Professional Practice Of Engineering, Third Edition, pp. 195–230.