Identify Stakeholders
Identify Stakeholders
A stakeholder is an individual or group of individuals who are directly associated with the productivity of a business. Stakeholders have a direct and indirect effect on the success and failure of business. It is observed that organization focus on identifying their potential stakeholders and create an effective relationship with them to achieve their objectives. It is an incredibly important task and discipline in every large successful project. The paper discusses stakeholder identification process for understanding those people or groups that have a direct and indirect interest in the project.
The successful completion and failure of a project are directly associated with the stakeholder management approaches. Stakeholder identification process is the most important part of project management that plays a major role in achieving the objective of a project. Different inputs, output, tools, techniques, and other elements are associated with the process. It is important to find the potential stakeholders that have the direct and indirect impact on a project and built the healthy relationship with them. Stakeholder identification process is comprised of different phases including project charter, stakeholder analysis, brainstorming, stakeholder management strategy, stakeholder register, and others. The process is based various input, techniques, and output that are discussed below (Singh, 2014).
Input
Input is comprised of project charter, procurement documents, enterprise environmental factors, and organizational process assets. The project charter is a detailed document that shows most significant information about a project including project sponsor names, management, project objective, roles and responsibilities, roadmap, requirements, schedule, budget, scope, and other information (Lussier & Achua, 2013). It describes the authority of project managers and identifies major stakeholders according to the nature of a project. Procurement documents are developed for issuing the invitation to suppliers and vendors for submitting a proposal on goods and services mostly through the bidding process. It is important to review enterprise environmental factors and organizational process assets during stakeholder identification process. Various internal and external factors have a direct impact on the performance and output of a project. Some enterprise environmental factors are market conditions, government regulation, political situation, infrastructure, organizational culture, resources, and others. An organizational process asset is a useful thing that is comprised of project policies, procedure, guidelines, template, risk register, and past project detail.
Techniques and tools
Techniques and tools are comprised of expert judgment and stakeholder analysis. A subject matter expert (SMEs) is the key person who provides his/her expert opinions for successful completion of a project. SMEs deliver significant information about a project and its nature that helps in identifying potential stakeholders. Stakeholder analysis helps to identify the potential stakeholders and their interest, power, influence, expectation, and impact on a project. The analysis supports to identify the both primary and secondary stakeholders including investors, project team members, management, suppliers, end users, partners, competitors, vendors, banks, government, media, labor union, communities, and some others (Bryson, 2007).
Output
The output of stakeholder identification process is the stakeholder management strategy and stakeholders register. The project manager and other authority are responsible for developing the most effective stakeholder management strategy to maintain the positive and healthy relationship with all stakeholders from start to completion of a project. Management and project team members arrange the brainstorming activity recognize their main stakeholders and develop the efficient strategy to meet the needs of projects and stakeholders. Stakeholder register is a detailed document that contains most significant information. The complete list of stakeholders and their influence, impact power, interest, and expectations are reported in stakeholder register. The most effective communication process all stakeholders are required for successful closure of a project (Dow & Taylor, 2015).
Conclusion
It is concluded that stakeholder identification and management is the significant process for meeting the objective of a project. The process plays a major role in success and failure of a project.
References
Bryson, J. M. (2007). What to do when Stakeholders matter. Public Managment Review, 12, 21-53.
Dow, W., & Taylor, B. (2015). Project Management Communication Tools. Renton: Dow Publishing LLC.
Lussier, R. N., & Achua, C. F. (2013). Leaaxdership: Theory, application, & skill development (5/e.). Mason, OH: Cengage/Thomson South- Western.
Singh, H. (2014). Mastering Project Human Resource Management: Effectively Organize and Communicate with All Project Stakeholders. New Jersey: FT Press.
