How to Gain More Support from Stakeholders

I know the project requirements and also have internal team to deliver the project, therefore wasting my time to getting know about the people other than my team members is not important. If you are kind of project manager who has same school of thought then I must say you are in deep trouble and would be facing hurdles throughout the project. We have to admit that people who are directly and indirectly involved in the project can make or break the project. As a project manager, I am sure you would be a happy person only if you deliver the project within defined cost, scope, budget, risk and quality.

Stakeholders are the individual who are directly and indirectly involved in your project. Since, we are not living in paradise therefore you should expect Hero’s and Villain’s among the stakeholders, they could have positive or negative on your project. However, you should keep in mind that stakeholder’s attitude towards your project could be changed only if you manage them properly.

The stakeholders could be any organization, department or individual which includes but not limited to; Customer, Supplier, Government, State Bank, Regulatory body, your boss, Functional manager, Administration department. In any of the case, you will find individuals at lower level of the hierarchy and you need to deal with them. The first step of stakeholder analysis is to acquire information about the individuals and their role in your project which can be achieved through stakeholder register.

A stakeholder register is a document or sheet which contains information about the organizations, team, individuals, and groups who are directly or indirectly involved & having any kind of interest in your project. The easy way to attain information form stakeholder is to place the document & sheet in the shared location such as Google docs, so it can be accessed and updated easily.

The proposed format of stakeholder is straight forward however, you can make modification as per your requirements.

1.   Name

2.   Organization

3.   Department

4.   Designation

5.   Project Role

6.   Cell #

7.   Landline #

8.   Official Email

9.   Skype id

Once you have filled stakeholder register then you would be in a position to move further with the stakeholder analysis exercise.

The second step is prioritize your stakeholder on the basis of power and interest.

• High power and high interest stakeholders needs to be managed closely. These stakeholders have high priority and it would take your massive efforts to satisfy them.
• High Power and low interest stakeholders will require more attention but not to the level that they get less interested about your messages.
• Low Power and high interest stakeholders are your well-wishers, so you need to keep them engaged throughout the project.
• Low Power and Low Interest stakeholders should be monitored closely, but should be bothered on regular basis.

Last and equally important step of stakeholder analysis is to understand the stakeholders by finding the answer of following questions.

• How they feel about your project?
• How they will respond to your project?
• What information they would be seeking throughout the project?
• What are the best possible ways to engage them in your project?
• How to communicate with them?
• How to make them feel positive about your project?
• How to seek their support for advancing your project?

The answer of these question can be answered by stakeholders themselves, therefore it is suggested to communicate with them directly rather than depending on second hand information attained from someone from other stakeholders and records of recent projects (OPA). Sometimes, we feel uncomfortable to ask questions from stakeholder and assuming that they won’t answer, but the fact is that in most cases people like to share their views and would like to develop comfort level with you.

To conclude, stakeholders are the individuals who can make or break your project, so managing them in a timely and better way will increase their support for your project.