Considering stakeholders that are often overlooked
As you develop your stakeholder register, be sure not to overlook the following potential stakeholders:
Support groups: These people don’t tell you what you should do (or help you deal with the trauma of project management); instead, they help you accomplish the project’s goals. If support groups know about your project early, they can fit you into their work schedules more readily. They can also tell you information about their capabilities and processes that may influence what your project can accomplish and by when. Such groups include:Project management office (PMO)Quality assurance (QA)Finance (includes accounts payable/receivable)Human resources (HR)LegalProcurement (or contracting)Facilities (includes security and shipping/receiving)Information technology (IT)Call centers and help desksManufacturingEngineeringMarketing
End users of your project’s products: End users are people or groups who will use the goods and services your project produces. Involving end users at the beginning of and throughout your project helps ensure that the goods and services produced are as easy as possible to implement and use, and are most responsive to their true needs. It also confirms that you appreciate the fact that the people who will use a product may have important insights into what it should look like and do, which increases the chances that they’ll work to implement the products successfully.In some cases, you may omit end users on your stakeholder register because you don’t know who they are. In other situations, you may think you have taken them into account through liaisons — people who represent the interests of the end users (check out the nearby sidebar “Discovering the real end users” for a costly example of what can happen when you depend solely on liaisons).
People who will maintain or support the final product: People who will service your project’s final products affect the continuing success of these products. Involving these people throughout your project gives them a chance to make your project’s products easier to maintain and support. It also allows them to become familiar with the products and effectively build their maintenance into existing procedures.
DISCOVERING THE REAL END USERS
A major international bank based in the United States had spent millions of dollars revising and upgrading its information system. Project personnel had worked closely with special liaisons in Europe who represented the interests of the local bank personnel who would actually be entering and retrieving data from the new system. When the bank introduced the upgraded system, they discovered a fatal problem: More than 90 percent of the local bank personnel in Europe were non-English speaking, but the system documentation was all written in English. The enhanced systems were unusable!
The system designers had spent substantial time and money working with the liaisons to identify and address the interests and needs of the end users. However, the liaisons had raised only issues from their own experience instead of identifying and sharing the needs and concerns of the local bank personnel. Because English was the primary language of all the liaisons, they failed to consider the possible need to prepare system instructions in multiple languages. Putting the local bank personnel on the stakeholder register along with the liaisons would’ve reminded the project personnel not to overlook their special needs.
Examining the beginning of a sample stakeholder register
Suppose you’re asked to coordinate your organization’s annual blood drive. Figure 4-1 illustrates some of the groups and people you may include in your project’s stakeholder register as you prepare for your new project.
© John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
FIGURE 4-1: The beginning of a sample stakeholder register for an annual blood drive.
Ensuring your stakeholder register is complete and up-to-date
Many different groups of people may influence the success of or have an interest in your project. Knowing who these people are allows you to plan to involve them at the appropriate times during your project. Therefore, identifying all project stakeholders as soon as possible and reflecting any changes in those stakeholders as soon as you find out about them are important steps to take as you manage your project.
Eventually identify each stakeholder by position description and name. You may, for example, initially identify people from sales and marketing as stakeholders. Eventually, however, you want to specify the particular people from that group — such as brand manager for XYZ product, Sharon Wilson — and their contact information.
Speak with a wide range of people. Check with people in different organizational units, from different disciplines, and with different tenures in the organization. Ask every person whether they can think of anyone else you should speak with. The more people you speak with, the less likely you are to overlook someone important.
Allow sufficient time to develop your stakeholder register. Start to develop your register as soon as you become project manager. The longer you think about your project, the more potential stakeholders you can identify. Throughout the project, continue to check with people to identify additional stakeholders.
Include stakeholders who may play a role at any time during your project. Your only job at this stage is to identify names so you don’t forget them. At a later point, you can decide whether, when, and how to involve these people (see the later section “Determining Whether Stakeholders Are Drivers, Supporters, or Observers”).
Include team members’ functional managers. Include the people to whom the project manager and team members directly report. Even though functional managers usually don’t perform project tasks themselves, they can help ensure that the project manager and team members devote the time they originally committed to the project and that they have the resources necessary to perform their project assignments.
Include a person’s name on the stakeholder register for every role they play. Suppose your manager plans to provide expert technical advice to your project team. Include your manager’s name twice — once as your direct supervisor and once as the technical expert. If your manager is promoted but continues to serve as a technical advisor to your project, the separate listings remind you that a new person now occupies your direct supervisor’s slot.
Continue to add and remove names from your stakeholder register throughout your project. Your stakeholder register evolves as you understand more about your project and as your project changes. Plan to review your register at regular intervals throughout the project to identify names that should be added or deleted. Encourage people involved in your project to continually identify new stakeholders as they think of them.
When in doubt, write down a person’s name. Your goal is to avoid overlooking someone who may play an important part in your project. Identifying a potential audience member doesn’t mean you have to involve that person; it simply means you have to consider her. Eliminating the name of someone who won’t be involved is a lot easier than trying to add the name of someone who should be.
