Stakeholder management: What is it and why is it so important?
Are you managing your stakeholders effectively? Do you really know all your stakeholders before that? Did you ever discover that you didn’t meet a requirement after you had completed half of the project? This could have been due to an important person not being involved in the project to the extent that he/she should be. Only 36% of respondents felt confident that key stakeholders and key members would be fully committed to the project’s goals and benefits. If you are not in an awkward situation like this, you can prevent it from happening. This article will give you a glimpse into project stakeholder management.
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Who is a stakeholder?
Now that you are aware of the importance of stakeholder management, let’s get started with the basics. Who is a stakeholder?
Stakeholders are anyone who is likely or directly affected by a project. In general, stakeholders can be divided into “Internal and External Stakeholders”.
Your organization has internal stakeholders. These include your Project sponsor, Project owners, Project team, and any other person or team that contributes to the project’s success. It also includes people who might be negatively affected by the project. E.g. People may need to reskill or be moved because of automation.
External stakeholders are people outside your organization. These could include your customers, vendors, shareholders, government, auditors, and so on.
What is Project Stakeholder Management?
It is important to manage stakeholders and their expectations. Stakeholder Management is an important part of Project Management. It is important to identify all stakeholders. While smaller projects may have fewer stakeholders, larger ones may have many. It might not be possible for everyone to be treated equally. Each stakeholder will have different expectations and requirements. It is crucial to identify each stakeholder. This will ensure that you don’t forget any stakeholders. Next, you need to classify stakeholders so they can be involved in the appropriate way. You are less likely to overlook any important requirements if you have both of these in place.
Project Stakeholder Management is the identification and analysis of stakeholders. It also includes their expectations and influences. They can have an impact on project outcomes depending on their power. Therefore, it is important to create appropriate strategies to work together with stakeholders and to execute the project. Each stakeholder needs to be able to communicate effectively. Before we dive into Project Stakeholder Management, let’s look at communication.
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Communication Management
Project Management, according to PMBOK, includes the following:
Project Scope Management
Project Time Management
Project Cost Management
Project Quality Management
Project Communication Management
Project Human Resource Management
Project Risk Management
Project Procurement Management
Project Stakeholder Management
Project Communications Management is responsible for the timely and appropriate creation, collection, distribution storage, retrieval, control, control, and monitoring of project information. Communication can often have multiple dimensions that need to be considered.
Both internal (within your project), and external (vendors and customers, other projects and organizations).
Formal (minutes and reports, briefings), and informal (memos or emails, ad-hoc conversations).
Horizontal (between managers and subordinates within the organization) and vertical (between managers and employees).
