Stakeholders have needs and expectations

- As a project manager, one of your key responsibilities is to understand who your stakeholders are and to identify their needs and expectations. This information is important to achieve project success, and who doesn't want that? Let's get into who stakeholders are. A stakeholder is someone who is positively or negatively impacted by your project. Project success is dependent on strong support from your stakeholders, The Project Management Institute's, or PMI's, 2017 Pulse of the Profession survey found that 62% of successfully completed projects had sponsors who were actively supportive. I once read that in real estate they say there are three important things: location, location, location. In project management it's stakeholder, stakeholder, stakeholder. After all, these are the folks we're doing the project for in the first place. So it's important to understand their needs and expectations and come up with a plan to address them. Let's explore two tools to help you identify stakeholder needs and expectations, their interests and potential impact to the project, and their level of engagement. For both tools, talk with your sponsor to get some of the details or talk with each stakeholder. The first tool is a stakeholder analysis or power interest grid. There are four quadrants. Monitor, keep satisfied, manage closely, and keep informed. Analyze each of your stakeholders to see how much power they have over your project and their interest. Then enter each stakeholder into the appropriate quadrant. Here's what each quadrant in the grid means. For high power, high interest people, manage them closely by engaging and communicating with them often. For those with high power, low interest, keep them informed and satisfied but don't overwhelm them with information. Low power, high interest people should be adequately informed and the project manager should address any arising issues. And for low power, low interest people, monitor them and answer questions or issues that surface. To determine stakeholder engagement you can use a template like this stakeholder engagement assessment matrix. This table lists each stakeholder and the five categories of engagement. It also shows where each stakeholder currently is and where you desire them to be. For example, stakeholder three is currently unaware, but you desire them to be supportive. Okay, so now you have your analysis for each stakeholder. Use this knowledge to create a plan for how you communicate with them, keep them engaged, and meet their needs and expectations. Stakeholder management is challenging and often requires a lot of time and patience. I promise you it's well worth the investment to keep your stakeholders happy and your project successful.