Anticlue

Stakeholders

Who are stakeholders in project management terminology? A stakeholder is someone who is affected by the project or someone who affects the project. So who are these mysterious stakeholders?

There is the project manager, this is the individual responsible for planning, communicating, assigning tasks, gathering identified issues, ensuring there is quality to the project, coordinating training on the project, tracking the benefits of the project, and providing the deliverables are on time. If it is where you make your bread and butter, you are affected by the project.

Another stakeholder is the customer or business associate. This is the group who will actually use the end result of the project. We are all affect by something that is going to change the way we work.

The project sponsor and executive sponsors, who provide the money for the project, are obviously stakeholders. I think we are all affect by our money is going.

The project team are all stakeholders. This is the group of people who are working on the tasks of the project. Interest arises from this is either work to be done, or work in progress. The work that needs to be completed affects those who are doing the work.

Now here is the political trick, let’s say you know someone who is none of the above, and yet still influences the project. Guess what another stakeholder has been identified!

A tip to stakeholder management, and i know it is anal, is to keep a matrix like the one below. It really helps if you need to turnover the project, get new manager, or some other reason you start getting asked why?