1.9.1 Evaluate Engagement Needs
Evaluate the engagement needs for stakeholders.
The definition of a stakeholder is expansive. Stakeholders include anyone affected by our project or anyone who can affect it. They can be individuals or groups.
The PMI definition of a stakeholder is “Any individual, group, or organization that may affect, be affected by, or perceive itself to be affected by a decision, activity, or outcome of a project, program, or portfolio.”
So, this obviously includes the project sponsors, customers, team roles, and supporting groups. However, it also contains part-time specialist roles, vendors and regulatory bodies. The “perceived to be affected” part of the definition includes competitors, protest groups and even conspiracy theorists. Anyone or any group that is, or believes to be, impacted is a stakeholder.
This might seem extreme, but analysis of project outcomes (especially failed projects) has shown that forgetting or ignoring stakeholders can have severe consequences. So we need to identify them, understand them and determine how best to collaborate with them.
We do not always have to try and satisfy them (remember competitors are stakeholders), and if building a prison, then convicts would also be stakeholders. However, we do need to consider them and have a plan for working with them.
Stakeholders can be supportive, neutral, or negative, and our actions will influence these feelings.
(Stakeholder engagement is usually taught as a complete lifecycle. However, because the PMP Exam Content Outline separates People related tasks from Process associated tasks, this is one of the topics that has content in two areas.)
See module 2.4 Engage Stakeholders for more on the stakeholder engagement lifecycle. Here, we focus on the subset that deals with collaborating, finding out what they need, and ensuring they get it.
Creating a Stakeholder Register is an activity traditional life cycle projects undertake while initiating the project. It can be completed by creating a document or spreadsheet of all the stakeholders that will be impacted by the project or have the ability to influence it.
Stakeholder Identification
Activities to identify stakeholders include:
The usual suspects – Review each of the common Stakeholder Groups (positive, negative, neutral) categories and list who is impacted or can influence this project.
Ask the team – Take the same questions to the team, ask them to individually, then collectively brainstorm who the project stakeholders are.
Surveys and questionnaires – Ask other stakeholders to tell us who we may have missed. Using surveys and questionnaires, we can canvas relevant stakeholders to their opinions on additional stakeholders or stakeholder groups we should consider.
Document analysis – Look at the other project documentation that might already be available such as the project charter. Anyone or group identified will be a stakeholder. Also, review the risks, assumptions and constraints. Do any point to people or groups we should be considering? Refer to other project documents that share some common characteristics. Review their stakeholder registers, lessons learned, communication plans, risk and issue logs, etc, looking for stakeholders that might be relevant for us.
Stakeholder Register
Stakeholder registers typically contain the following information for each stakeholder or stakeholder group identified:
- Name
- Contact information
- Project role
- Project requirements
- Outcome Expectations
- Impact and influence scores
- Likely attitude about the project
- Stakeholder classification
- Associations
Agile projects may not create a formal stakeholder register. Still, they likely have a Who’s Who, or contact information document, spreadsheet or Wiki page on the project site to record similar details.
Agile projects often create persona descriptions for essential project stakeholders. These personas describe the stakeholder’s characteristics such as typical demographic information, wants, needs, problems to solve and concerns for the project. Persona representations help remind the development team of significant stakeholder requirements and concerns.
1.9.2 Optimize Stakeholder Alignment
Optimize alignment between stakeholder needs, expectations, and project objectives.
Once we have a good idea of who the stakeholders are, we can begin to evaluate their needs and plan how best to engage them. Bear in mind new stakeholders may emerge as the project progresses. Like many project management deliverables, the stakeholder register and any stakeholder engagement plans we create are living documents that will require maintenance throughout the project.
To create a Stakeholder Engagement Plan, we first need to analyze and understand the stakeholder needs.
Stakeholder Analysis
Consider their interests, roles and responsibilities. Assess their potential influence and impact on the project. Stakeholder mapping categorizes stakeholders into groups to be managed in a particular way. Creating a stakeholder map with different categories of stakeholders can help in planning how to prioritize their engagement.
Techniques we can use include:
- The Salience Model – See 1.2 Lead a Team
- Power Interest Grid – See 1.2 Lead a Team
- Categorize Stakeholders – See 2.4 Engage Stakeholders
Engage business to understand needs
Talk to people to understand what they really want and expect from the project.
Often there is a difference between what people initially describe and what they really want. Also, once people see “X,” they often say they need “Y.” So it is vital to explore what they really mean when describing something and check back periodically to see if their needs are still being met.
Hybrid and agile approaches that develop incrementally and hold frequent demonstrations gather a lot of information about business needs. Continuous engagement and validation of business needs reduce the likelihood of receiving rejection or extensive change requests later in the project lifecycle.
Promote dialog with all stakeholders
Encourage all participants to share their thoughts, ideas, and concerns.
Make sure you know who all your customers are. Engage them early and often to keep the dialog going. We want to avoid nasty surprises and disappointments, so keep communicating.
Confirm stakeholder participation
Get agreement on the type and amount of involvement required from the stakeholder for this product/project to be successful.
Discuss what is expected for participation. Agree on how frequently the stakeholder involvement is required, what form it will take, and how the process for evaluating it will operate.
Monitor and adjust stakeholder engagement
Continually check-in with people on how the work is going.
As necessary, change how we are working with stakeholders to better suit the work being done and address identified issues. Look for people who are overloaded with work and creating bottlenecks to the throughput of value delivery. Rebalance workloads if necessary to optimize the flow of value.
Foster group decision making and conflict resolution
Encourage people to make decisions collectively and collaboratively.
Make sure to engage the relevant people and that the process for making decisions taps individual knowledge and the group consensus for the best way forward. Getting ideas for solutions individually first avoids the halo effect (being drawn to a senior person’s opinion) and groupthink or social loafing (also called the Ringelmann effect, where people do not try as hard when in a group.) Then as a group, decide on the best options presented.
Team members are important stakeholders. Agile approaches promote collaborative decision making, planning and estimation to gain better insights and generate consensus for the decisions reached.
1.9.3 Use Trust and Influence to Accomplish Objectives
Build trust and influence stakeholders to accomplish project objectives.
Building trust is essential for leading any endeavor. As we saw in 1.2 Lead a Team, being honest and inspiring are critical for being a competent leader. We need to create a compelling vision, follow-through, do what we commit to, and continuously communicate.
Communication Plans
Communication plans are a core component of consistency, follow-through and maintaining a uniting vision. A communication plan sets out how we will share project information with various stakeholders. It can be a document or table on a website. The main thing is people know where to find it, and it explains how project information will be shared.
Hybrid and agile approaches adopt high transparency tools for communicating project status to stakeholders. Instead of sending status reports, meeting minutes and risk logs to stakeholders and hoping they are read, this information is publicly displayed in team spaces and on project websites.
Information radiators are big visible charts that share project information. A task board and impediments board share much of the same information (work done, work in progress, work planned, issues, etc) as a project status report.
There are pros and cons to both sending reports and relying on information radiators. We could try to do both, but this might not be the best use of our organization’s time and money. Stakeholder analysis (asking what people want and need), whether conducted formally or informally should inform our decisions.
Create a shared view of the goal
Unite people with a common view of where we are trying to get.
People must understand and share the same vision of “Done” for increments and the final solution. To be effective and work productively without detailed, centralized coordination, we need people moving towards common goals. So, spend time ensuring everyone knows where we are trying to get to. That way, when faced with their own local decision points, or forks in the trail towards project completion, they make decisions aligned with the larger goal.
Maintain the shared vision of success
Frequently remind people about where we are trying to get to and why it is essential that we get there.
Product and project priorities can change quickly. People come and go from projects, and the market is continuously evolving. With all these changes occurring, we must frequently remind people of where we are trying to get to and why that is important. So, don’t let the end goal shift or become fuzzy in people’s minds. Align their expectations towards the success criteria to keep the end goal clearly in focus.
Share progress, good and bad
Share information. Make sure people know what is going on, whether this is good news or bad news.
It is crucial to be open and honest about progress, issues, and threats. People are astute and recognize if things are not being discussed, they will begin to withdraw their wholehearted commitment if they feel information is being withheld. So share information, both good and bad, with the team and business representatives ⸺ often people surprise us with novel solutions to problems.
People want to know what is going on, and we should be able to discuss topics openly. Being honest about progress, good and bad is not only professional, and expected — but it also builds trust, which pays future dividends in various ways.
Share forecasts to help planning
By sharing accurate updates on progress, we help people plan their work and improve their ability to plan for the future.
When sharing forecasts and plans, we also need to share our levels of uncertainty. Future predictions are more useful when we also know the uncertainty connected to them.
Deliverables and Tools
- Stakeholder Registers
- Personas
- Stakeholder Engagement Plan
- Communication Plan
- Information radiators
Related Topics
- 1.2 Lead a Team
- 1.4 Empower Team Members and Stakeholders
- 1.6 Build a Team
- 1.8 Negotiate Project Agreements
- 1.10 Build a Shared Understanding
- 1.11 Engage and Support Virtual Teams
- 1.12 Define Team Ground Rules
- 2.1 Execute Project with the Urgency Required to Deliver Business Value
- 2.2 Manage Communications
- 2.4 Engage Stakeholders
- 2.5 Plan and Manage Budget and Resources
- 2.14 Establish Project Governance Structure
- 2.15 Manage Project Issues
