Project Stakeholder Management

This is the second 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

2. PROJECT STAKEHOLDER CLASSIFICATION

The list of project stakeholders can be very large, so we need to partition the list in a way that helps us to manage each stakeholder or group. One strategy is to map out all the stakeholders on your project and partition them according to their:

INFLUENCE (“the ability to control or affect the actions, beliefs and attitudes of other people”) and:
INTEREST (“the state of being responsible, affected, involved, concerned, attentive curious”).

After considering all the classifications, you will be able to plot the stakeholders in a grid similar to the example below:

A further dimension can also be added by considering people’s level of support for your project. Assess their motivation, and fit them in to one of these categories:

• Allies
• Supporters
• Neutral
• Reluctant
• Opponents

This exercise can be done using a flipchart and a few coloured pens, or on a spreadsheet.

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:

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

Project stakeholder management involves gaining an understanding of the social and political environment is which your project is taking place. Now that’s easy to say, but more difficult to find out. Luckily, there are ways to get a good idea about what’s going on in a particular company, region, or country before you embark on your project.

I use Google News and Google Trends to search for the latest trends and news stories affecting people as a good guide to the overall environment, particularly if one of the stakeholders is defined as ‘the general public’ or groups of people. Google Trends tracks the broad pattern of internet searches with reference to relevant news stories.

For example, if you are going to be involved in a project with a company called ABC Ltd, then you could search Google Trends for ‘ABC Ltd’ to see how the interest in that company varies over time, and how that interest links to news stories. This is good for an overall view of what’s going on and saves having to read all the detail in the annual report or the news that the company posts on its own website. The same thing can be done for a country.

Here’s an example of the trend for the technology giant Motorola Inc of USA showing the overall search trend heading downwards - like their share price - and the news volume going upwards - but it’s all bad news!

Project Stakeholder Management focuses on the human dynamics of a project environment: managing relationships and communications. This essential process can help to ensure that your projects succeed where others fail.

We will present here a simple step-by-step process to help Project Managers cope with the demands of managing all the varied project stakeholders, named the ‘ice-cube’ model (because we have 6 steps like the 6 sides of a cube, and we name the steps I-C-E, I-C-E).

Here are the steps:

1. IDENTIFY the project stakeholders, by asking yourself:

• Who will be affected by the project or its deliverable?
• Who will get the responsibility of supporting the product once the project is over?
• Any external contractors or suppliers?
• Any government or regulatory requirements?

2. CLASSIFY and group the stakeholders by Interest and Influence

3. Gain an understanding, and manage, their EXPECTATIONS

4. INFLUENCE the stakeholders, by educating them about the benefits of your project

5. COMMUNICATE and get everyone involved as soon as possible

6. EVALUATE to check that your strategy is working, and also check for any changes in stakeholder groups

The process is discussed fully in the Article, available in the download section of this website.