Tricks for Stakeholder Management

Jeffrey S. Nielsen, PMP

PMI® discusses stakeholders and how the “team must identify the stakeholders, determine their require-
ments and then manage and influence those requirements to ensure a successful project.” A key to stake-
holder management is careful and accurate needs analysis. This means that stakeholder management is a
proactive task.

Project managers have many problems with the proactive aspect of stakeholder management. Let’s look at some of
the common problems that are experienced by project managers.

o Project managers don’t know who all the stakeholders are

o Stakeholders have conflicting interests
o Not getting all the stakeholders needs and expectations
o Not managing stakeholder expectations
o Not getting stakeholders’ buy-in

These problems, although daunting, can be solved. The steps that you need to follow are quite simple. Making sure
that you do them is the difficult part.

o Identify the stakeholders

o Determine their requirements, needs, expectations and objectives
o Define stakeholders’ roles and responsibilities
o Assess the impact of stakeholders and their requirements on the project

Tricks of the TradeTM

Tricks that will help you avoid problems and make the process smoother.

o Plan for how you will manage stakeholders. Think about this before you need to do the managing. It will give
you a head start. Identify each stakeholder for their capabilities and potential contribution to the project. Find out
from others problems or issues that each stakeholder created or assisted with on other projects.

o Use brainstorming to identify and evaluate the impact of stakeholders. Remember to look at all the people
who will be impacted - for either good OR bad. Brainstorming helps the team to think through the final product of
the project and determine who may be impacted.

o Interview your stakeholders. Ferret out those hidden requirements. Ask pointed questions that will get them
thinking about what they expect from the project. Ask questions like the following. What specific things would
make this project a success for you? How can this project help you in other ways? How do you envision the prod-
uct or service being used?

o Define the functional requirements. They sketch out what you plan to produce. Use it as a communication tool.
It gives the stakeholders an idea of what they will get in the end. Any miscommunication caught early in the proj-
ect is cheaper to fix and you can avoid problems in execution.

o Communicate to manage stockholder expectations. This is the most important part. Bring all the stakeholders
to the kickoff meeting so everyone hears the same information and can discuss any conflicts. Keep the stakehold-
ers informed about what is going on with the project. Keep them up-to-date on any changes to the deliverables.
Have them review and accept key deliverables during the project. The more time you spend on communication
with your stakeholders, the less time you will spend on managing changes later into the project.

Add these tricks to your tool kit and make your projects the ones that always look easy.

© 2002 by Rita Mulcahy, PMP, at RMC Project Management; a project management training email: info@rmcproject.com
and consulting company. All rights reserved. phone: 952.846.4484
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