Project Stakeholder Management

This is the third in a series of six articles to discuss Best Practices in Project Stakeholder Management, using the I-C-E cube model:

1. Identify
2. Classify
3. Expectations
4. Influence
5. Communicate
6. Evaluate

3. DETERMINE PROJECT STAKEHOLDER EXPECTATIONS

You need to understand, quantify and document stakeholder’s needs, wants, and expectations in relation to the project, to create requirements that can be managed as part of the Scope management process. Remember that requirements cannot be fully defined at the beginning of the project, due to the concept of Progressive Elaboration (where we understand more about the project as time progresses).

Here are some techniques for uncovering requirements:

• Interviews
• Focus Groups
• Facilitated Workshops
• Questionnaires
• Surveys
• Observation
• Prototypes

Ask the following:

• How do the various stakeholders’ goals for the project differ?
• How will we know if this project is a success?
• What information do they want?
• What is their opinion of you and your team?
• Are their expectations negative or positive?
• What demands will the project put on them and their staff?
• Can they accommodate the project in the required time and with the given budget?

Sometimes it won’t be possible to convert their expectations into requirements. You will then need to influence the stakeholders (discussed in step 4).

Avoid unquantifiable requirements such as “customer satisfaction”, which are subjective and therefore entail a high risk of being successfully completed. Reframing (the ability to see events from another person’s perspective) can be a useful technique for identifying stakeholder expectations, as discussed in the post about negotiating.