Project Stakeholder Management

It includes the processes required to identify the people, groups or organization that could impact or
impacted by the Project. It help identify who are the stakeholders, plan to keep them engaged and
manage your project to keep this satisfied. Some of the Processes include
- Identify all of them
- Determine their requirements
- Determine their expectations
- Determine their interests
- Determine their level of influence
- Plan how will you manage them
- Plan how will you communicate with them
There are 4 processes of Stakeholder Management
Identify Stakeholder Initiation
Plan Stakeholder Management Planning
Manage Stakeholder Engagement Execution
Control Stakeholder Engagement Monitoring and Controlling
1. Identify Stakeholder:
Identify Stakeholders is the process of identifying the people, groups, or organizations that could impact
or be impacted by a decision, activity, or outcome of the project, analyzing and documenting relevant
information regarding their interests, involvement, interdependencies, influence, and potential impact
on project success. The key benefit of this process is that it allows the project manager to identify the
appropriate focus for each stakeholder or group of stakeholders. Identifying all the Stakeholders helps
create a better organized projects, any stakeholder that may be discovered later may request changes
and leads to delays.
It is done along with Project Charter development.
Three Is of Stakeholders: Interest, Influence and Importance
Inputs:
1. Project charter: It can provide information about the external or internal parties related with the
project and affected by the result.
2. Procurement documents: Provides information about the suppliers, third parties
3. Enterprise environmental factors
4. Organizational process assets
Tools and Techniques:
1. Stakeholder analysis - Stakeholder analysis is a technique of systematically gathering and analyzing
quantitative and qualitative information to determine whose interests should be taken into account
throughout the project. It identifies the Interest, expectations and influence of the Stakeholders.
Stakeholder Analysis steps
- Identify all potential project stakeholders and relevant information like: roles, deptt, interests,
influences levels etc.
- Analyze the potential impact each stakeholder could generate and classify them to define an
approach strategy.
- Assess how key stakeholders are likely to react in various situations.
There are multiple classification models used for stakeholders analysis, such as:
a) Power/interest grid, grouping the stakeholders based on their level of authority (power) and
their level of concern (interest) regarding the project outcomes;
 b) Power/influence grid, grouping the stakeholders based on their level of authority (power)
and their active involvement (influence) in the project;
c) Influence/impact grid, grouping the stakeholders based on their active involvement
(influence) in the project and their ability to effect changes to the projects planning or
execution (impact)
d) Salience model, describing classes of stakeholders based on their power (ability to impose their
will), urgency (need for immediate attention), and legitimacy (their involvement is appropriate).
A power/interest grid is useful graphical tool to identify stakeholder influence on a project. A variant
called a power/influence grid appears below:

This grid identifies two vectors: power and influence. Power means that the stakeholder can stop the
project if dissatisfied with the results. Influence means that the stakeholder can influence in the
direction of the project.
- When Power and Influence are both low, the PM needs to monitor the situation regularly.
- When Power and Influence are both high, the PM should maintain constant communication with
that stakeholder to ensure the project is proceeding to the stakeholder satisfaction and that
issues needs to be addressed immediately.
2. Expert judgment
3. Meetings
Outputs:
1. Stakeholder register - The main output of the Identify Stakeholders process is the stakeholder
register. It should be updated on regular basis throughout the life cycle of the project. It contain
information like:
a) Identification Information - Name, organizational position, location, role in the project,
contact information
b) Assessment Information - Major requirements, main expectations, potential influence in the
project, phase in the life cycle with the most interest;
c) Stakeholder Classification - Internal/external, supporter/neutral/resistor, etc.
2. Plan Stakeholder Management:
Plan Stakeholder Management is the process of developing appropriate management strategies to
effectively engage stakeholders throughout the project life cycle, based on the analysis of their needs,
interests, and potential impact on project success. The key benefit of this process is that it provides a
clear, actionable plan to interact with project stakeholders to support the projects interests.
Inputs:
1. Project management plan
2. Stakeholder register
3. Enterprise environmental factors
4. Organizational process assets
Tools and Techniques:
1. Expert judgment
2. Meetings
3. Analytical techniques A key analysis technique is to compare the current engagement level of all
stakeholders to the desired engagement levels required for successful project completion. This is known
as Stakeholder Engagement Assessment Matrix. The engagement level of the stakeholders can be
classified as follows:
a) Unaware. Unaware of project and potential impacts.
b) Resistant. Aware of project and potential impacts and resistant to change.
c) Neutral. Aware of project yet neither supportive nor resistant.
d) Supportive. Aware of project and potential impacts and supportive to change.
e) Leading. Aware of project and potential impacts and actively engaged in ensuring the project
is a success.
Outputs:
1. Stakeholder management plan: It identifies the management strategies to effectively engage
stakeholders. It defines
a. Desired & Current Engagement
b. Scope and impact of change
c. Identified interrelationships
d. Stakeholders Communication Requirements
e. Information to be distributed to stakeholders
f. Reason for distribution
g. Timeframe and Frequency of Distribution
h. Method of updating and refining the Stakeholder Management Plan.
2. Project documents updates Documents which will be updated
a) Project schedule
b) Stakeholder register
3. Manage Stakeholder Engagement:
It is the process of communicating and working with stakeholders to meet their needs/expectations,
address issues as they occur, and foster appropriate stakeholder engagement in project activities
throughout the project life cycle. The key benefit of this process is that it allows the project manager to
increase support and minimize resistance from stakeholders, increase the chances to achieve project
success. It involves activities like
a) Engaging stakeholders at appropriate project stages
b) Managing Stakeholders expectation through negotiation and communication
c) Addressing potential concerns that may not become issues and anticipating future problems.
d) Clarifying and resolving issues that have been identified.
It increases the probability of project success by ensuring that stakeholders clearly understand the
project goals, objectives, benefits and risks.
The ability of stakeholders to influence is highest during initial stages and get progressively lower as
project progresses.
Inputs:
1. Stakeholder management plan
2. Communications management plan Communication plan should include below things.
a) Stakeholder communications requirements;
b) Information to be communicated, including language, format, content, and level of detail;
c) Reason for distribution of information;
 d) Person or groups who will receive information; and
e) Escalation process
3. Change log
4. Organizational process assets
Tools and Techniques:
1. Communication methods
2. Interpersonal skills
3. Management skills
Outputs:
1. Issue log: It is a key tool used by the Project Manager to identify issues, define the impact, priority and
urgency of the issues, assign ownership of the issues and established due dates for resolution. It is PM
Responsibility to create and track issues on the project with the goal of bringing them to a successful
resolution or escalating them to senior management if the issues fall outside PM Authority.
2. Change requests: It includes corrective and preventative actions to project itself or to the interaction
with the impacted stakeholders.
3. Project management plan updates
4. Project documents updates - Organizational Process Assets Updates, Project Records, Project
Presentations, Lesson Learnt Documentation.
5. Organizational process assets updates below document will be updated as part of Organization
process assets. Stakeholder notifications, Project reports, Project Presentations, Project records,
Feedback from Stakeholder, Lessons Learned document.
4. Control Stakeholder Engagement:
Control Stakeholder Engagement is the process of monitoring overall project stakeholder relationships
and adjusting strategies and plans for engaging stakeholders. The key benefit of this process is that it will
maintain or increase the efficiency and effectiveness of stakeholder engagement activities as the project
evolves and its environment changes.
Inputs:
1. Project management plan
2. Issue log
3. Work performance data
4. Project documents
Tools and Techniques:
1. Information management systems: It provides a standard tool to project manager to capture, store
and distribute information to stakeholders about project cost, schedule progress and performance. It
also allows the PM to consolidate reports and facilitate Distribution.
2. Expert judgment
3. Meetings
Outputs:
1. Work performance information: Work performance information is the analyzed work performance
data, changed from raw data into reports that are understood in context and can be used to make
project decisions. Where work performance data was the raw outputs of the various controlling
processes, the work performance information is consolidated
2. Change requests
3. Project management plan updates
4. Project documents updates Stakeholder register updates and Issue log.
5. Organizational process assets updates - The organizational process assets, which may be updated.
a) Stakeholder notifications
b) Project reports
c) Project presentations
d) Project records
e) Feedback from stakeholders.
f) Lessons learned documentation