6 Stakeholder Managment

Stakeholders are persons or organizations that can affect, be affected by, or perceive themselves to be affected by the project

The Organisation

Both, the organization a project is part of and the organization it works for have significant influence —>The organization provides and defines the overall strategy, norms and expectations

The Project Team

->most important stakeholder for the achievement of the project goals—> directly involved in the creation of the output

Stakeholders can have significant influence on the success of a project

• They have the power and ability to provide necessary resources:

  • Budget

  • People

  • Information

  • Know-How/Skills

• They might have interest in

  • Project Success

  • Project Failure

Multilateral exchange of information—>Most efficient way to achieve common understanding of all involved—>Conflict coordination

Send to specific recipients—>only Shipped assured, Reception or understanding by the recipient not sure—>Notifications of new information

Used for very large amounts of information, for very large audience—>Access of the recipients to the communicated content necessary—>Progress update/status from the workers

• This model shows that it is important to ensure, that the sent message is actually decoded properly → the correct information gets transmitted

• Oftentimes 1:1 meetings (in-person) are most effective

  • But has also disadvantages (e.g. logistics)

• Official information should be transmitted via E-Mail

1. Identify Stakeholder → Create a stakeholder register

   • Name of individual or group

   • Contact person or members list in case of a group

   • Role and position (see e.g. organizational chart)

   • Contact and availability information

2. Analyze Stakeholders → Develop a stakeholder management and communication strategy

   • Determine interest/disinterest

   • Determine influence

   • Determine relationship and influence among stakeholders

   • Communication strategy is the base for Communication Planning

• An Interest-Influence Matrix can be used to analyze stakeholders

• An Interest-Influence Matrix can be used to analyze stakeholders

• Listening: Active Listening

• Speaking: Giving a speech/speaking in public

• Reading

• Writing: The Pyramid Principle

• Moderating: Neuland-Moderation

• Negotiating: The Harvard Concept

Documents and information of the project initiation phase provide important information for stakeholder identification

• Sources of Input:

  • Project Charter/Project Brief/Project Mandate

  • Procurement Documents

• Stakeholders can also be identified based on the project organigram:

• Sources of Information and Input:

  • Stakeholder analysis

  • Required information and its value for stakeholder and project

  • Organization charts

  • Information about the organizations communication culture and rules

  • Already established communication channels between the stakeholders

  • Stakeholder management strategy

  • Project situation

  • Logistic framework conditions (locations, time zones, etc.)

• Tools and Techniques Applied:

  • Type and format of communication

  • Calculate the number of communication channels: $n * (n-1) / 2$

  • Grouping of stakeholders

  • Clearly define and limit who should exchange information with whom (communication paths)

The Communication Plan is the core tool regarding project communication

• Developed based on the stakeholder analysis

• Primarily used by the project management team

• Ensures information requirements of all stakeholders are met

• Internal (project management) document for the project team

• Maintained by the project management team

• Communication planning can also lead to a schedule update

Communication is the key tool of project management but it is not value creating

Communication planning is the process that produces the communication plan based on the results of the stakeholder analysis

The subject of the communication requirement analysis is the identification of the stakeholders information needs and habits

When planning communication it’s important to consider the available tools, technologies and conditions

• To do so Technology, Project location and stakeholders should be taken into consideration

• The project manager should be able to use the equipment

  • E.g. a bad video quality in a motivational video could be disturb the message

• Manage a stakeholder closely means to take into consideration the factors above

The communication plan defines content, sender, receiver, medium, frequency and time of communication activities

• The communication plan includes the following information

  • What: Information communicated

  • When/How long: Time and duration

  • How often: Frequency

  • Who: Author, sender, approver

  • To whom: Recipients/participants

  • Why (optional): Goal of the communication

  • Success Measure (optional): Criteria for measuring the success of the respective communication activity