Stakeholder Engagement Strategies

A stakeholder is an individual, group, or organization that may affect, be affected by, or perceive itself to be affected by a decision, activity, or outcome of a project, programme, or portfolio. Projects have a wide sphere of influence. There are a lot of people to communicate to at different organisation levels in different organisations and these people are the stakeholders involved in any project, and they must be managed and engaged.

There are different types of stakeholders involved in any project. There are immediate project stakeholders, who can be the project team members, the heads of department or people in the different departments (e.g., IT, Sales, Engineering), the portfolio or programme managers. Outside of that, other stakeholders that we need to communicate with are sponsors, governing bodies and steering committees, maybe even project management office (PMO) staff, partner organisations, different suppliers and contractors, regulatory bodies, government agencies. Furthermore, the end-users and customers are also our stakeholders.

According to APM definition of stakeholder management: “The systematic identification analysis and planning and implementation of actions designed to engage with stakeholders”.

In any project in a there are a lot of people to communicate with and at different organisation levels, that is why stakeholder management is very important in any project. People skills and communication are going to be key aspects of stakeholder management. The stakeholders have different needs, different views, and different expectations. They could be supportive of the project, or they could be against it. Again, it is important to remember they need to be ‘looked after’.

There are many ways to identify the stakeholders in a project. Profile Analysis Meeting is a meeting that gets the project team to brainstorm, share, and collect information about project stakeholders. Managing or engaging with those stakeholders. Looking at the documents from past projects is a great way to identify stakeholders, especially if you have inherited a project, or if you are new to the organisation. You might be able to flush out some more project stakeholders by holding focus groups. This means getting people together to discuss something in a facilitator led workshop. Create a mind map where you put the project in the centre, and then add stakeholders around the outside. Then you can start to link out to the stakeholders going outwards from the centre of your projects.

The best time to identify your stakeholders is while you are initiating and planning the project. Projects typically follow this sort of sequence where they are initiated, planned in detail, then executed, then monitored and controlled, and finally they are closed. You need to identify your stakeholders very early on. They will then have a chance to influence the project objectives and the project planning phase. Getting the stakeholders on board during the feasibility phase allows you to consider their viewpoints.

Building relationships with stakeholders is better than following processes. We can say that stakeholder management is process led, whilst stakeholder engagement is relationship led. A good relationship helps with the sharing of information. More information means less uncertainty, and that has to lead to a better project outcome. Better relationships leave a legacy to take forward into the next project.

Another way to identify our stakeholders is called the stakeholder circle. We need to consider what we are doing, and then think about the upward, downward, sideways, and outwards stakeholders. The Stakeholder Wheel identifies stakeholders as internal or external to the company. Stakeholder identification is important. If we miss any stakeholders, we will get into problems later on. Allow time to do stakeholder identification properly, and remember this is an ongoing process.

It is essential to identify stakeholders early in the project. We identify stakeholders by:

• looking at past project

• looking at previous project documents

• brainstorming with the project team, and

• building visual stakeholder relationship maps.

Allocate time to stakeholder identification. It is a good team building exercise. Build your relationships, talk to the stakeholders, talk to people involved in past projects, and get them to help you identify your stakeholders.

In doing the stakeholder analysis, we need to put the information in stakeholder register. This is all going to be useful information when we get to the detailed stakeholder analysis. The Stakeholder Register should include the following information:

• Name

• Job Title

• Company Name

• Contact information (e.g. email address, phone numbers, LinkedIn, Twitter or Facebook pages, etc)

• Area of Influence

• Opinion

• Impact

The main classification of stakeholder is on the base that if they are ‘For’ or ‘Against’ the project. We can then see if they are actively or passively involved as stakeholders. Mapping the stakeholders is a great start to analysing stakeholders. If the stakeholders are “for” the project, then we want them to be actively involved in the project. It is important to understand who are the powerful stakeholders, who are also “for” the project but are passive. We want to make them actively support our project. Initially and subjectively, we can score them as high, medium, or low, or moving to a scale of 1 to 10 score.

The key analysis of stakeholders is whether they are powerful or interested in the project. We can then assign the stakeholders into four categories as shown in stakeholder map. The stakeholders who have got high power and a very high interest in the project. We need to manage these people very closely. The stakeholders who have got high power, and a low interest in the project. We need to keep them happy and satisfied, consult with them and meet their needs. These are stakeholders who have got low power, and a low interest in the project – the least important. These are stakeholders who have got low power, and a very high interest in the project. We need to show them some consideration.

The definition of salience is “the quality of being noticeable or importance or prominence”. It is about finding out what is important to each stakeholder. In other words, we are trying to find out who are the most important stakeholders. The salience model actually looks at three areas, resulting in eight positions for a stakeholder to end up.

1. Power: It might be the position or status of the stakeholder in the organisation.

2. Legitimacy: When the stakeholder is an elected body, or if they are official representatives. They might gain legitimacy by being recognised professionally or politically, such as elected councilors. Their official position gives them this legitimacy.

3. Urgency: How critical, how time sensitive the issue is to the stakeholder.

How do you decide if a stakeholder has Power, Legitimacy, or Urgency?

There is a train of thought that our organisational culture clouds our perception of these things. For example, Business Management might be more interested in profit than keeping all the stakeholders fully satisfied. That might cloud judgment regarding the importance or legitimacy of a stakeholder. In another example, Charity Management may be more altruistic and motivated to help people at whatever the cost.

We have taken the identified stakeholders and added them to the stakeholder register. We then classified them in a convenient manner, adding the new information to the register.

Then we analysed them initially using the four box matrix stakeholder map method that used their Power and Interest. If using the Stakeholder Salience Model, we can rate their Power, Legitimacy, and Urgency. We have put together a Stakeholder Analysis Toolkit with several templates you can use according to your project stakeholder needs.

Stakeholder engagement is the most important step because it adds value to our project. By engaging, we are going to communicate with the stakeholders and build relationships with them. Stakeholder engagement plan is a detailed strategy to effectively engage with the stakeholders. As part of this, we will want the project stakeholders to productively engage in the project planning and execution phases as appropriate. It will include how they see our project from their perspective, and some metrics or key performance indicators to show that we are actually doing these stakeholder engagement activities. The plan will suit the needs of our project, formal or informal, and in as much detail as required.

We are trying to move our first stakeholder to be more receptive to the project, and we are trying to move our second stakeholder to be more supportive of the project.

Receptiveness might vary from:

1. Completely Uninterested – Refuses to accept reports

2. Not Interested – On mail list but unlikely to read reports

3. Neutral – Receives Reports

4. Medium – Indirect personal access

5. High – Direct personal contacts

Supportive might vary from:

1. Active Opposition

2. Passive Opposition

3. Neutral

4. Passive Support

5. Active Support

Using a 5×5 matrix we can calculate an Engagement Index for the whole stakeholder community and track these changes through the life of the project.

Stakeholder engagement adds value and benefits to the project team. This is because the project should go more smoothly and more successfully. There will be a better sense of achievement at the end of the project.

The steps for stakeholder engagement:

1. Build relationships: Rather than follow processes. Having identified the stakeholders, having collected lots of information about them. Start to build relationships with them.

2. Set their expectations: You may need to be assertive, and you may need to negotiate. You may need to say “no” to some of their wants and desires.

3. Develop their stakeholder profile: Complete a stakeholder engagement plan, and stay in touch with the project stakeholder.

The Association for Project Management (APM) has looked very deeply at stakeholder engagement. The key principles for APM are

1. Communicate.

2. Consult, early and often.

3. Remember, they’re only human.

4. Plan it!

5. Relationships are key.

6. Simple, but not easy.

7. Just part of managing risk.

8. Compromise.

9. Understand what success is

10. Take responsibility.

In order to maintain good communication with our stakeholders, we need a communication plan to engage with the stakeholders. The plan should clearly show:

• What it is that we need to communicate

• Why are we communicating this information

• Who’s it going to do the communication, and who is the communication towards

• When and how often we need to communicate

• How are we going to make that communication

• Where are we going to do it

We need to start communicating before we know that we have to. There is a popular phrase: “it’s who you know, not what you know”. Communication with stakeholders is about how we can keep the stakeholders involved and participating in the project. Building relationships means five things:

1. Be open and honest, and do what you promised.

2. Make sure that there are no surprises.

3. Be assertive.

4. Treat people as people.

5. Show respect.

In this section we will be looking at the important project management tools. The first tool is a responsibility assignment matrix, or RACI chart is simply a list of the tasks that we need to do on the project. Another tool is The Risk Log describes the risk, and then estimates the risk impact and the risk probability. When a risk has happened, it becomes an issue. We then probably need to move the risk to an Issue Log. When any changes come along, we need to tell people about them. Any change that comes along, needs to be logged in changes Log.

It is important to set expectations with the project stakeholders. We need to meet with them, and clearly tell them what we are going to do. Never make assumptions. By being clear with our stakeholders about what we are going to do, they cannot make assumptions either. We should use some good open questions to build relationships and identify stakeholders.

We need to keep engaging continuously with the stakeholders. Stakeholder engagement is an ongoing process.

On any project things are constantly changing. Below is a list of a few:

• The scope could be changed

• The project team members can be changed

• Risks become issues,

• Issues become project changes,

• Changes affect the project scope

• Eventually, different stakeholders could become involved

• A supplier changes and we have got a new stakeholder.

It is important to note the top warning signs that indicate the stakeholder position is could be changing. They are missing meetings, delaying decisions, being vague, communication stops or reduces, becoming critical, defensive, or aggressive. When things go wrong, it is time to listen to the stakeholders that are getting difficult to manage. We may need to be assertive with our stakeholders, but we need to make sure that we listen to them and understand their changed motivation.

Compromise can be a loss-win. We need to make sure that we have explored all options before agreeing to compromise. Ideally, we should find a solution that becomes a win-win. The stakeholder map (Affinity diagram or rich picture) is useful for trying to view issues from the others perspective. Ongoing relationships, engagement, and listening to your stakeholders will, give stakeholders confidence that their concerns are being listened to. It will also allow a workable solution to be applied to what may seem a difficult problem.

A standard Capability Maturity Model (CMM) can be applied to many things. Typically, the CMM has 5 levels:

1. Ad-Hoc

2. Procedural – Repeatable

3. Relational or Integrated

4. Comprehensive

5. Predictive

Keeping stakeholders involved with our project ensures that the project will deliver the required business benefits for all. Keep a lookout for new stakeholders, never stop communicating, and engaging with the stakeholders. A good relationship with our project stakeholders will help identify issues early that can be dealt with to the mutual benefit of all parties.

Stakeholder engagement is important because it increase the chance of project success. Lots of initiatives and projects fail to deliver what is required. The business does not benefit from this wasted effort. But if we do more stakeholder engagement, then there is more chance of project success. Stakeholder engagement and good relationships with stakeholders help solve common project failures:

• Disparity of objectives

• Conflicting objectives

• Lack of communication

In this topic, we will be focusing on problems that can negatively impact effective stakeholder engagement. So, what prevents good Stakeholder Engagement? Make it clear that team members are responsible for communicating, engaging, and building relationships with particular stakeholders. However, we need to consider that people change jobs. Maybe one person’s job is split, and we now need to speak to two stakeholders. One of the main issues with projects is a lack of information. Projects do not get approved until there is enough information for the business case, or from a feasibility study.

In this topic, we will be looking at some guidelines for engaging and communicating with your stakeholders. Recognise who the stakeholders are. It is important to identify your stakeholders early – we spent some time on this topic earlier in the course. Use a model to classify the stakeholders into groups. Use the stakeholders to shape your strategy. We need to get close to our stakeholders, and build trust.