What Is Stakeholder Management?
Every project requires input from other people. The people providing that input are those who have a stake in the project’s success.
Stakeholder management is the process by which you develop and maintain quality relationships with your stakeholders. Learning how to communicate with each stakeholder is important to maintaining and strengthening those relationships, increasing their trust and confidence in you and your team, and ensuring their continued interest in the success of the project.
Different types of stakeholders may be involved in your project. For example:
External stakeholders include the client, their managers, and other individuals with which you may be asked to work.
Internal stakeholders consist of the project team, any contractors or vendors you bring into the project, your management team, and anyone else in your company who wants the project to succeed.
Expanded stakeholders include any individuals who may provide input on the project, from consultants to testers to potential customers or system users and many more.
Get to Know Your Stakeholders
Once you identify the stakeholders for your project, you’ll need to devise a plan for managing and communicating with them throughout the life cycle of the project. This means getting to know them so you can optimize your communications. To do this, you’ll need to ask some specific questions and be honest when documenting your answers. The following is a list of questions that may prove the most useful in developing your SMP:
Which stakeholders have the greatest influence over your project?
These will most likely be members of the client team.
Which stakeholders will be most affected by your project?
These will again include the client team, but can also include outside individuals.
How do you handle influential people who are not considered stakeholders but see themselves as important to the project?
These are people who should be kept at arm’s length when it comes to the project. They can often raise unnecessary concerns and create roadblocks in development. While they may need to be kept in the loop, their input is not required.
What motivates and interests each of your stakeholders concerning the project?
To answer this question, you’ll have to answer a few others and do some digging to get your answers:
Who has a financial stake in the project?
Who has an emotional stake or interest?
Who are the project’s biggest supporters?
Who are the project’s biggest detractors?
Create a Stakeholder Management Plan
After answering questions about your stakeholders, you should have enough information to begin writing a plan to address their needs. A good SMP can be something as simple as a spreadsheet that lists the stakeholders and their interests, including financial and emotional. It should also include certain key milestones.
Creating a template can help; however, not all SMPs will be the same. Some require greater detail than others. MyPM, LLC is a company that specializes in contract project proposals and management. They also provide a comprehensive library of free downloadable templates for common project management documentation needs. Using the links below, you can download MyPM’s stakeholder management plan template, which you may use as-is for any SMP development you do in this course, or as a starting point for developing your own templates.
How to Use an SMP With a Client Brief
The SMP is not technically part of the client brief, but it is an important part of your early documentation needs. It will help you identify those stakeholders who may need to see the client brief you prepare but whom you would have otherwise not considered.
There will often be obvious links between certain project requirements and the motivating factors for your stakeholders. Understanding these can help you prioritize, which will contribute to the stakeholder's satisfaction and excitement over the project.
Benefits of an SMP
Stakeholder insights can help shape a project and propel you toward success. It’s important to know who those stakeholders are, so you don’t waste time communicating and trying to work with people who don’t need to be informed of the progress. Also, stakeholders with the greatest influence can help clear roadblocks, locate and secure needed resources, and influence changes to constraints. Keeping those stakeholders happy is often critical to a project’s success.
Let’s Recap!
The stakeholder management plan (SMP) is a separate document not necessarily related to the client brief, but essential to the beginning of any project.
Managing stakeholders means getting to know them so you can effectively communicate with them.
A good SMP can help you prioritize certain requirements over others, leading to greater satisfaction.
Stakeholder insight can help shape your project and is often critical in project success.
Great work so far! Let’s recap what we’ve covered in Part 2 in preparation for the next quiz.
