Stakeholder Analysis: Part 1

Article by Natasha M. Baker (4,707 pts )

Edited & published by Marlene Gundlach (17,603 pts ) on Dec 18, 2009
Related Guides: Stakeholder AnalysisProject Stakeholders

In this three-part article series, Natasha Baker examines the stakeholder

analysis. In part one she examines project stakeholders. Part two explains the
role of the stakeholder analysis in project management, and in the third article
she gives examples of stakeholder analysis.

What is a Stakeholder?

Stakeholders are people with a vested interest in the

success of the project, whose support, or cooperation is necessary for the
project to succeed. Stakeholder buy-in will make the difference in time to
complete the project. In some cases, the biggest barrier to project success
has been stakeholders.

In project management stakeholders are people, groups, or institutions with

interests in a project or program. Stakeholders can be customers, the local
community, managerial staff, non-managerial staff, a government entity, and
both private and public owners (shareholders). It can be virtually anyone as
long as that person or group has something to do with the project.
Lets take a general software company, probable stakeholders would be:

• Those responsible for design and development

Stakeholders' Interests, Impact, Priority

Stakeholders can be listed in a table or spreadsheet with their key interests,
potential level of project impact, and priority in relation to other stakeholders.
Be careful to outline multiple interests, particularly those that are hidden in
relation to project goals and objectives.

The key is to keep in mind that identifying interests is done with stakeholders'
perspective in mind, not your own. This is difficult as interests are usually
hidden and may contradict openly stated aims. Each interest should be
related to the appropriate project phase; that is, interests change as the
project moves from beginning to ending phases. With some stakeholders it
may be crucial to extract interests by formally asking them questions such as:

• What are your project expectations?

• How do you benefit from successful project completion?
• Which stakeholders do you believe are in conflict with the
project interests?

Once major interests are identified, it is also useful to outline how the project
will be impacted if these are or are not met. In most cases, a simple
annotation of positive (+), negative (-), or unknown (?) can be used as well as
high (H), medium (M), low (L), or uncertain (?).

Summary
You should now have a more precise list your project's stakeholders. At this
point their importance, interests, and impact on the project should be clearly
identified and analyzed. In part two, I will explore the role of the stakeholder
analysis in project management.

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Examples of Stakeholder Analysis
In this three-part article series, Natasha Baker examines the stakeholder
analysis. In part one she defines the term stakeholder analysis. Part two
explains the importance of a stakeholder analysis in project management, and
in the third article she gives real-life examples of stakeholder analysis.

Read more: http://www.brighthub.com/office/project-

management/articles/9846.aspx#ixzz14VhFPj4e

In article two of her three-part series, Natasha Baker explains the role of the
stakeholder analysis in project management. In part one she defined the
project stakeholder and in part three she gives real-life examples of
stakeholder analysis.

What is Stakeholder Analysis?

Stakeholder analysis is a process of systematically gathering and analyzing
qualitative information (data) to determine whose interests should be taken
into account when developing and or implementing a policy, program, or
project.
Why Is this Analysis Useful?
Project managers can use a stakeholder analysis to identity the key
stakeholder and to assess their knowledge, interests, positions, alliances, and
importance related to the project. This allows project managers to interact
more effectively with key stakeholders and to increase support for a given
policy, program, or project. When this analysis is conducted before a project is
implemented, project managers can detect and act to prevent potential
misunderstandings about or opposition to the project. When a stakeholder
analysis and other key tools are used to guide the implementation, project is
more likely to succeed.

What Are the Steps in Stakeholder Analysis?

There are eight major steps in the process:
 1. Planning the process: The first step in conducting a
stakeholder analysis is to define the purpose of the analysis, identify
the potential users of the information, and devise a plan for using the
information. A discussion of these issues should be led by the
“sponsor,” or initiator, of the stakeholder analysis.
2. Select an appropriate policy: For a stakeholder analysis to be
useful, it must be focused on a specific project. In most cases, the
sponsor will have identified a project, but it is important to ensure that
the policy in question is an appropriate project for a stakeholder
analysis before the process begins.
3. Identifying the key stakeholders is extremely important to
the success of the analysis: Based on the resources available, the
project management team should decide on the maximum number of
stakeholders to be interviewed. The team should then define the list of
stakeholders.
4. Plan to interview the priority stakeholders identified: to gain
accurate information on their positions, interests, and ability to affect
the process.
5. Collecting and recording the information: Before beginning
the interviews, the project management team should gather and review
secondary information on the priority stakeholders. Possible secondary
information sources include: newspapers, institutional reports and
publications, speeches, organization annual reports, political platforms,
etc.
6. Filling in the stakeholder table: This step of the process
involves taking detailed and often lengthy answers from the interviews
and arranging them into a more concise and systematized format (for
anonymity and to highlight the most significant information). By doing
this, the project management team can eventually develop clear
comparisons among the different stakeholders and concisely present
this information to the project managers who will use it.
7. Analyzing the stakeholder table: Once the stakeholder table is
complete, the information needs to be "analyzed." Such an analysis
should focus on comparing information and developing conclusions
about the stakeholders' relative importance, knowledge, interests,
positions, and possible allies regarding the policy in question.
8. Using the information: The use of the information generated
by the stakeholder analysis should be discussed during Step 1,
Planning the Process, and should be reviewed again once the results
have been analyzed. As mentioned, there are various ways to use the
information from a stakeholder analysis—to provide input into other
analyses, to develop action plans to increase support for a project, or
to guide a participatory, consensus-building process.

Analyzing the Stakeholder Table

When working on step 7, the working group should be able to conclude the
following using the information in the stakeholder table:
 • Who are the most important stakeholders?
• What is the stakeholders' knowledge of the policy?
• What are the stakeholders' positions on the specific policy?
• What do the stakeholders see as possible advantages or
disadvantages of the policy?
• Which stakeholders might form alliances?

When conducted in the early planning stages of project management,

stakeholder analysis offers many benefits to project managers aids in:
identifying stakeholders, anticipating their influence, developing support
strategies, and reducing any obstacles to a successful project completetion.

In the third article of this series, Natasha Baker provides an example of a

stakeholder analysis. It is important to conduct a stakeholder analysis to
identify these individuals or groups including their name, organization, role on
the project, level of interest, and influence.

Stakeholder Analysis
Stakeholders are people with a vested interest in the success of the project,
whose support, or cooperation is necessary for the project to succeed.
Stakeholder buy-in will make the difference in time to complete the project. In
some cases, the biggest barrier to project success has been stakeholders.

In project management stakeholders are people, groups, or institutions with

interests in a project or program. Stakeholders can be customers, the local
community, managerial staff, non-managerial staff, a government entity, and
both private and public owners (shareholders). It can be virtually anyone as
long as that person or group has something to do with the project.
Stakeholders will provide important information during the development stage
and throughout the project. A stakeholder is anyone who will be affected by
the project. It is important to conduct a stakeholder analysis to identify these
individuals or groups including:

• name
• organization
• role on the project
• level of interest
• level of influence
• unique facts
• expectations (how they define success)
• ways to manage their expectations

This information is important because it is these individuals who will identify

the system requirements and provide project resources and support. If the
team misses an important stakeholder or doesn’t manage the stakeholders’
expectations, these individuals could work against the project and keep it from
achieving its objectives. A sample stakeholder analysis follows:
Sample Stakeholder Analysis

Stakeholder Analysis
It is common for the project manager(s) to schedule face-to-face meetings
with key stakeholders at the beginning of the project. One of the most
important things to get from these meetings is how the stakeholder defines
project success (their expectations). This information can then be used to
refine the project purpose and objectives. If for some reason the stakeholders’
expectations are different than those of the project team, this is an opportunity
to communicate this and begin to manage these expectations. These will also
need to be managed throughout the project, as stakeholder expectations
often change over time. By including key stakeholders in regular status
meetings and sending this type of information to other stakeholders as part of
the project communications plan, the project manager can better manage
these changing expectations.

Read more: http://www.brighthub.com/office/project-

management/articles/11136.aspx#ixzz14ViVLt4p