Question

What is the main purpose of developing a stakeholder management strategy? When should it be done? Who should see the results?

Answer 1

Stakeholder Management: It is the process of developing appropriate techniques to engage stakeholders effectively throughout the lifecycle of project, so as to have better analytical understanding about their wants, needs, interests and also to analyse their potential impact on the project outcomes or deliverables.

Main purpose of stakeholder engagement strategy: The major benefit of stakeholder management analysis is that, it provides a clear as well as actionable plan for interacting with stakeholders, involved in the project to support the project interests. This also helps to increase the support of the stakeholders by reducing the negative impact of them throughout the project lifecycle. This gives an idea about level of power and influence of stakeholders on project activities.

When should it be done: During the beginning time of the project initiation, the project manager has to do the stakeholder analysis by engaging the key stakeholders. Level of engagement varies as per different stages of project lifecycle. By highly engaging the stakeholders during the early stages of the project plays pivotal role for kicking off the project, achieving the objectives of selecting suitable staff and also to clear the obstacles. As the project will be progressing, the stakeholder engagement level will be shifting from key stakeholders to broader project team members and end users.

Who shuold see the results: Project Manager is responsible for creating the stakeholder engagement matrix and gathering the data to maintain Stakeholder analysis register and communication plan. He is the person responsible for monitoring the stakeholder relationships, planning and adjusting the engagement strategies. Monitoring involves data collection, assessing stakeholder engagement level, tabulating data collection results with suitable insights and finally adjusting tactics and strategies for effective stakeholder engagement. Project manager is the person responsible for seeing the stakeholder engagement results also and to act accordingly.