After identifying the project’s stakeholders you have to analyze and classify them in the stakeholder register. The Stakeholder Management Strategy will be developed after it.
In this blog post, first I’ll discuss the stakeholder analysis and their classification, and then we will move onto the strategy to manage them.
Before reading this blog post, please visit my previous blog posts describing the stakeholders and the stakeholder register.
Stakeholder Analysis and their Classification
To analyze your stakeholders, you have to find answers for the following questions:
- What is the power of the stakeholder?
- How much influence has he on the project?
- What is the interest level of the stakeholder?
- How much does he desire to be involved with the project?
There are various ways and different classification models in which you can classify and analyze the project stakeholders.
For example, stakeholders can be classified based on their:
- power and interest
- power and influence
- influence and impact
- power, urgency and legitimacy (also known as salience model)
Power and Interest: In this classification, stakeholders are grouped as per their power and interest towards the project and its outcome.
Power and Influence: Here, stakeholders are grouped according to their power and level of influence on the project and its outcome.
Influence and Impact: This classification is based on the influence and impact of the stakeholders on the project.
Power, Urgency and Legitimacy: This model is also known as the Salience Model. Here, stakeholders are classified as per their power, urgency and legitimacy.
Among all model discussed above, the power/interest model is most widely used by the project managers throughout the world. Here a graph is plotted as shown in the figure, where the horizontal line shows the Interest and the vertical line represents the Power.
As you can see from the exhibit, you can group all stakeholders into four groups. The strategy to manage them is as follows:
A stakeholder with
- high power and high interest should be managed with utmost care
- high power and low interest should be kept satisfied
- low power and high interest should be kept informed
- low power and low interest require less effort than the rest. They should only be monitored
As a project manager, it is your job to keep looking at each stakeholder because you never know when a low power stakeholder will become high power and influential.
Once you complete the classification process, the next step is to create the Stakeholder Management Strategy.
Stakeholder Management Strategy
The purpose of Stakeholder Management Strategy is to increase the support and minimize the negative impacts of the stakeholders. A successful Stakeholder Management Strategy, if planned carefully and followed accordingly, can ensure a fruitful ending to your project.
It is very important for you to understand the communication needs of your stakeholders. Communicating frequently and regularly with them will ensure that they understand the project’s progress and requirements. It will also make them feel connected to the project.
You can draft this strategy either based on single user or the group of stakeholders. It is up to you how to plan your strategy. However, draft your strategy in such a way that fulfills your stakeholder’s needs, requirements, and expectations.
You have to be very careful with this plan because it may contain some sensitive information that can not be shared with everyone. Therefore, keep this document in some secure place.
Summary:
Stakeholder Classification:
- stakeholders can be classified based on their power and interest, power and influence, influence and impact, and power, urgency and legitimacy
- among all, power and interest classification is the most widely used to classify the stakeholders
Stakeholder Management Strategy:
- is a plan which is developed to keep satisfied all stakeholders by fulfilling their expectations and requirements
- ensures receiving full cooperation from the stakeholders with minimum obstruction
- should be kept in a secure place because it may contain sensitive information that can not be shown to everybody
image credit (top image) => renjith krishnan / FreeDigitalPhotos.net