Everyone is talking about stakeholders these days. Surprisingly, this has not always been the case. The modern concept of stakeholders seems to have emerged from the work of the Tavistock Institute in London, England in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
Forty years later, the concept of stakeholder has expanded to include all of the people and organizations that have a real or perceived '"stake" in the project or its outcomes.
A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK® Guide) breaks down a stakeholder as a person or organization that:
• Is actively involved in the project
• Has interests that may be positively or negatively affected by the performance or completion of the project
• May exert influence over the project, its deliverables or its team members
In my work on mapping and managing stakeholders, I have found it important to expand on this basic definition to understand the "stake" of the stakeholder. This helps determine the best way to engage with them.
Here are some of the different stakes a person or organization may have (most have more than one):
Interest: To be affected by a decision related to the work or its outcomes
Rights: To be treated in a certain way or to have a particular right (including legal or moral) protected
Ownership: To have a legal title to an asset or a property
Knowledge: To possess specialist or organizational knowledge needed for the work
Impact or influence: To be impacted by the work or its outcomes, or have the ability to impact (or influence) the execution of work or its outcomes
Contribution: Relating to the support or assets including the supply of resources, the allocation of funding, or providing advocacy for the objectives of the project
Once you understand the stake the stakeholder is seeking to protect, profit from or enhance, you can structure your communications to let the person know you understand their hopes or concerns. From this starting point, you're in a much better position to manage the relationship to the benefit of both the project and the stakeholder.
Forty years later, the concept of stakeholder has expanded to include all of the people and organizations that have a real or perceived '"stake" in the project or its outcomes.
A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK® Guide) breaks down a stakeholder as a person or organization that:
• Is actively involved in the project
• Has interests that may be positively or negatively affected by the performance or completion of the project
• May exert influence over the project, its deliverables or its team members
In my work on mapping and managing stakeholders, I have found it important to expand on this basic definition to understand the "stake" of the stakeholder. This helps determine the best way to engage with them.
Here are some of the different stakes a person or organization may have (most have more than one):
Interest: To be affected by a decision related to the work or its outcomes
Rights: To be treated in a certain way or to have a particular right (including legal or moral) protected
Ownership: To have a legal title to an asset or a property
Knowledge: To possess specialist or organizational knowledge needed for the work
Impact or influence: To be impacted by the work or its outcomes, or have the ability to impact (or influence) the execution of work or its outcomes
Contribution: Relating to the support or assets including the supply of resources, the allocation of funding, or providing advocacy for the objectives of the project
Once you understand the stake the stakeholder is seeking to protect, profit from or enhance, you can structure your communications to let the person know you understand their hopes or concerns. From this starting point, you're in a much better position to manage the relationship to the benefit of both the project and the stakeholder.
I especially like the point regarding the need to "understand the 'stake' of the stakeholder." Sometimes we just add people to the list without a whole lot of thought as to why. Identifying and understanding each person's "stake" may provide some useful insight.
The stake of "Right" is sometimes abused to be executed by part of the director just with just some shares on the company group. Working as the project leader of a OEM business company, one has to handle different shareholders abuse to use the 'Right" among Stakeholder to affect the decision on Subcontract Vendor Selection result in a favorite choice upon him.
Appreciate that the PMBOK Guide 4th Edition guide us project managers to be concerned with whether the stakeholder may have interests that may be either positively or negatively affected by the performance or completion of the project. This is the headache of most project managers.
In short projects, six weeks, if you have the luxury of an old, familiar, highly experienced team working in their sweet spot, jointly applying a perfect agile methodology, the inmates can run the asylum. I've been there and it's been fun as a SME.
Conversely, if the project is just a tad lengthy, more the one stakeholder, a stretch for team technical competency and/or good measure add a dash of politics, without someone driving the initiative it is more likely that the project will die from apathy.
Why? Because the technologists will defer until the stakeholders work it out. Now when was the last time anyone has ever seen stakeholders work it out alone?
"Put me in coach!"
This is a nice article. I hope I can contact Lynda hereafter