Best Practices (Part 1 of 6): Project Stakeholder Identification
This is the first in a series of six articles to discuss Best Practices in Project Stakeholder Management, using the I-C-E cube model:
- Identify
- Classify
- Expectations
- Influence
- Communicate
- Evaluate
1. PROJECT STAKEHOLDER IDENTIFICATION
The first step in developing our Project Stakeholder Management strategy is to identify the stakeholders. These are people or organisations that are actively involved in a project, or whose interests may be positively or negatively affected by execution or completion of the project. Overlooking negative stakeholders can increase the likelihood of failure. Whatever list you produce will need to be re-visited during the project lifecycle as new information becomes available and as the project progresses.
In order to start the identification process you’ll need the following inputs:
- Project Charter
- Procurement documents
- Company information
- Lessons learned from previous projects
The output of this exercise will simply be a listing of stakeholders, with no analysis at this stage.
I suggest an initial identification exercise by the Project Manager, followed by exercises with the project team in the form of brainstorming or other group-facilitation methods.
To get you started, see the list of project stakeholders in the ‘downloads’ section.