Stakeholder management and project communications
Introduction
All projects will involve changing something in the organisation and this will impact on someone. Stakeholders fall into two broad categories, those who the project will impact upon and those who can impact on the project. Impacts can be either positive or negative. Stakeholder management is about building a broad coalition of support for your project.
The four stages of stakeholder management are;
- Identify: Who are my stakeholders?
- Analyse: What do I know about my stakeholders?
- Plan: What do I need to do to build a strong coalition of support?
- Manage: Making sure it happens
In large projects the effort required to do stakeholder management should not be underestimated. This is often managed as a supporting project in its own right with its own dedicated project staff and project plan.
