Chapter 5. Stakeholder Management
5.4 Key Takeaways
Key Takeaways
- Stakeholders have a positive or negative influence on the project or might be positively or negatively affected by the project or its activities, decisions, and outcomes. Stakeholders can be anyone including, but not limited to, individuals, groups, teams, businesses, corporations, communities, government agencies, not-for-profit organizations, international bodies, and non-governmental organizations.
- The stakeholder power/interest grid is a two-dimensional matrix with four quadrants. It helps project leaders categorize stakeholders and create effective communication strategies for each category of stakeholder on the project.
- The stakeholder register provides a snapshot of all the stakeholders in terms of their power and interest levels, current and required support levels, risk ratings, their relationship to other stakeholders, issues and concerns, and engagement strategy and tactics to keep them supportive of the project or keep their resistance in a very low level.
- One of the common responsibility assignment matrices is the RACI (responsible, accountable, consult, and inform) chart, which is a useful tool for ensuring clear roles and responsibilities when the team consists of internal and external resources.
- The project manager’s interpersonal skills are needed, especially while communicating with the stakeholders. Project managers must rely on their soft skills to be effective. Effective project manager spends a significant amount of time building relationships with stakeholders. It is highly important for a project manager to obtain, confirm, or maintain stakeholders’ commitment to the project’s success.
