Project Management Stakeholder Analysis
Who’s got a stake in my project?
Projects do not exist in isolation; they deliver an outcome, for example, a service or a product, that is of use to an individual, group or organisation, which means that every project, no matter how small or large, will have stakeholders. Stakeholders are those who have a specific interest in a project, and this may be as a direct participant in helping to deliver the project or an interest in its outcome.
In a simple project, the stakeholders may be easily identifiable with little effort. In more complex project environments, however, a stakeholder analysis activity may be needed.
Stakeholder analysis allows us to identify those with a vested interest in the project and to understand their connection to the project.
Hints for stakeholder analysis
Look at the management and organisational groups within your organisation and establish:
- Who are the key decision-makers? Would they make decisions affecting your project? If yes, they are a stakeholder.
- What is the benefit of the project to each group? If there is a benefit, they are a stakeholder.
- Can the group or individuals within the group provide input to the project? If yes, they are a stakeholder.
Once you’ve worked who they are, you need to establish:
- What their role will be in relation to the project
- That they are available to participate
Your final list of project stakeholders will include:
- project sponsor(s) – the champion of the project who often provides the budget
- steering group/board members – the group that controls the project overall and provides the governance around decision-making
- project team members
- those who will benefit from the project’s output
- those who supply services or resources
- internal departments within your organization that help in the delivery of the project by providing either services or resources
What to do with stakeholders…
Identified stakeholders should be involved in the project from the outset and their expectations set and managed. Remember that different stakeholders may have quite different expectations of what the project means to them and your job, as an effective project manager, is to manage these expectations throughout the whole lifecycle of the project.
Ask your stakeholders what they think will be the measure of success of the project and that will give you a good feel for their individual expectations.
Communicating
Once you know the needs and expectations of your stakeholders, you can then work out what communications will be appropriate for them. Your project can be progressing successfully with everything delivering to plan and budget, but if the right people don’t know that they will not recognize the success. Likewise, any deviations in the project’s progress needs to be flagged to the right stakeholders for corrective action to be agreed. Communication has to be THE principle activity in any project.
And, finally…
At the end of the project, look at how effectively the project met the needs and expectations of each stakeholder and use these to form lessons learned for later projects.
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