Important Terms and Definitions - Managing Stakeholders

As with all sections, let us wrap up the section on Stakeholder Management with the important terms we learnt in this section.

• Asynchronous communication - Communication in which the sender and receiver don’t have to be present at the same time, such as written paper or electronic documents, online bulletin boards, e-mail, and the World Wide Web in general.
• Distribute information - The process of making information available to stakeholders according to the project management plan.
• Issue - An item or a matter that is under discussion or dispute and for which there are most likely opposing views and disagreements among the stakeholders.
• Issue log - A tool used to manage issues that includes opening, modifying, tracking, documenting, and resolving issues.
• Managing stakeholder expectations - A process used for communicating and working with stakeholders to stay on the same page with them on the project requirements by addressing their needs and issues as they arise.
• Performance report - A document or a presentation that provides information about the performance, progress, and status of the project.
• Synchronous communication - Communication in which both the sender and the receiver have to be present at the same time, such as face-to-face project meetings and teleconferencing.

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Summary - Managing Stakeholders

Let us wrap up the section on Managing Stakeholders by summarizing what we learnt in the previous few chapters.

• It is crucial to the success of the project that stakeholder expectations be managed through distribution of the right information to the right stakeholders at the right time by using the right communication methods.
• Processes of managing stakeholder expectations and distributing information are called Manage Stakeholder Expectations and Distribute Information, and they belong to communication management.
• The communication management plan, a part of the project management plan, and performance reports are the major input items to the Distribute Information process.
• The information can be distributed by using various methods, such as reports and presentations.
• The communication management plan and stakeholder management strategy are major inputs to managing stakeholder expectations.
• Management and interpersonal skills are crucial to successfully managing stakeholder expectations.
• Performance reports, a major input to the Distribute Information process, come from monitoring and controlling the project. We haven't covered the monitoring & controlling part yet, but don't worry its coming up very soon.

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Chapter 69: Big Picture of Stakeholder Management

As explained at various places during our PMP study series, managing stakeholders is extremely important and vital to the success of the project. Managing stakeholders includes the following processes:
• Identify Stakeholders - This is the process of identifying all the stakeholders, positive and negative, during the project initiation. In this process, you develop a stakeholder register and a stakeholder management strategy. Remember the chapter on Identifying Stakeholders and Stakeholder Management Strategy?
• Collect Requirements - As part of scope planning, this is the process of collecting project and product requirements that will meet the stakeholders’ needs and expectations. In this process you generate the stakeholder requirements document and the requirements management plan.
• Manage Stakeholder Expectations - This is the process of staying on the same page with the stakeholders on requirements by addressing their needs and issues.
• Distribute Information - This is the process of distributing relevant information to the right stakeholders at the right time by using the right methods.

The whole process can be illustrated as below:

Since, we have already covered Identifying Stakeholders and Collecting Requirements in great detail in the previous chapters, we will move on to Manage Stakeholder Expectations in the next chapter.


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Important Terms and Definitions - Project Initiation

The following are some important Terms that we have learnt as part of the Project Initiation Phase.

• Assumption - A factor that you consider to be true without any proof or verification. Assumptions can appear in both the input and the output of various processes.
• Constraint - A restriction that can affect the performance of the project.
• Initiating process group - A process group that contains two processes: develop project charter and develop preliminary project scope statement.
• Project charter - A document that states the initial requirements to satisfy the stakeholders’ needs and expectations and also formally authorizes the project.
• Project Management Information System (PMIS) - An information system that consists of tools used to store, integrate, and retrieve the outputs of the project management processes. This can be used to support all stages of the project from initiating to closing.
• Project scope - The work that must be performed to deliver a product, service, or results with the specified features. The project scope draws the boundaries around the project: what is included and what is not.
• Stakeholder management strategy - The approach developed to deal with the stakeholders in the best interests of the project.
• Stakeholder register - A document that identifies the project stakeholders and the relevant information about them.
• Statement of work (SOW) - A document that describes the products or services to be delivered by the project. It is an input to developing the project charter and the preliminary project scope statement.

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Summary - Project Initiation

Let us now summarize whatever we have learnt over the course of the previous few chapters reg. the Project Initiation Phase.

• Organizations start projects for different reasons, such as to meet a business or legal requirement, to take on a business opportunity, or to develop a solution for a problem.
• However, the underlying motivation is always to meet some business objectives in the strategic plan of the organization.
• Three categories of methods are available to select from the proposed projects.
• The first method is the benefit measurement method, which evaluates the benefits from the project.
• Constrained optimization methods focus on the probability of completing the project successfully, and
• Expert judgment relies on expert advice.
• As a project manager, you need to identify each stakeholder: an individual or an organization that is going to gain or lose from the successful completion of your project.
• The initiating project stage is constituted by two processes: Develop Project Charter and Identify Stakeholders.
• The two documents generated by the initiating stage are the project charter, which names and authorizes the project manager, and the stakeholder register, which identifies the project stakeholders and relevant information about them.
• Based on this information, you develop the stakeholder management strategy.
• The project charter also includes project justification based on the business needs and a high-level description of the product or service that the project will offer to meet those business needs.
• Issuing an approved project charter moves the project from the initiation stage into the planning stage, which is composed of a number of processes collectively called the planning process group.
• These processes will be covered in the subsequent chapters.

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Chapter 23: Stakeholder Management Strategy

This is the last chapter in the section on “Initiating a Project” in our PMP preparation series. We have learnt how to identify the stakeholders, analyzed them and classified them into various categories. Now the last step would be to create a strategy to manage the stakeholders. Yes, you create a Stakeholder Management Strategy. This is what we are going to learn in this chapter.

So, lets get started!!!

What is Stakeholder Management Strategy?

The stakeholder management strategy is the approach developed to deal with the stakeholders in the best interests of the project. Once we identify & analyze the stakeholders, it is imperative that any good project manager will put together a plan that can be used to manage these people.
The strategy should include the following elements:

• Key stakeholders
• For each stakeholder, level of influence on the project and level of impact on the stakeholder from the project
• How to manage individual stakeholders
• How to manage groups of stakeholders

For ex: you can create a table that will contain details of every single stakeholder and their details like below:

Stakeholder	Interest in the Project	Assessment of Impact of the Project on the Stakeholder	Level of Influence of the Stakeholder on the Project	Positive Stakeholder or Negative Stakeholder?	Strategy for Maximizing Support or Minimizing Negative Impact
Stakeholder 1	………	………	………	………	………
Stakeholder 2	………	………	………	………	………

The above is just a template and I havent filled in any details. The list would be long if there are numerous stakeholders and the project manager has to fill in the details of all those stakeholders.

Trivia:
The stakeholder management strategy should include both the positive and the negative stakeholders. You should develop and implement the stakeholder management strategy with one goal in mind: to optimize the project success by maximizing the support from the positive stakeholders and minimizing the impact on the project from the negative stakeholders.

As discussed in the previous chapter on stakeholder analysis, you can compare the different stakeholders and prepare a graph/plot to diagrammatically represent them. If the variables (for analysis) are chosen carefully, the output graph will show how much attention each stakeholder would need.

For Ex: let us look at a sample graph to understand better. Lets say X axis represents the level of interest in the project from low to high and the Y axis represents the amount of influence the stakeholder would have on the project from low to high.

If you see the graph above, we have 4 categories of stakeholders, stakeholder 1 has the highest authority level and has the highest interest in the project and hence he is the one we need to spend maximum effort managing whereas stakeholder 3 has the least interest and least authority, but still he too is a stakeholder and we need to spend a little effort to manage him.

Communication of information about the stakeholders is an important part of the stakeholder management strategy. For example, some of the information about certain stakeholders may be too sensitive to be included in a publicly shared document. As a project manager, you must exercise your judgment on which information about which stakeholder can be shared with whom and to what detail. Some stakeholders may make noise on certain things that they need not know, and you must ensure that they don't learn those things.

Trivia:
Even though, you have created a Project Charter and a Stakeholder Management Strategy, a project isnt officially kicked off until the Project Charter is approved. So once that is done (Usually by the Project Sponsor or the PMO) we are good to start the project.

Next:
As the project manager, you have created the project charter, identified all stakeholders and prepared a stakeholder management strategy. So the Project Initiation Phase is successfully complete. We are ready to move on to the next big step. As the next step, you will start Planning for this project.

First, we will wrap up the Initiation chapter with a summary and then move on to the project planning phase.

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