Strategies For Effective Stakeholder Management In A Project

Identifying and categorizing stakeholders

Stakeholders should be indentified as well as categorized into different groups in order to maintain vital stakeholder’s relation. It is identified that the stakeholders of the project are categorized into customers, employees, suppliers, investors as well as influencers in order to manage as well as complete the operation of the organization.

The stakeholders of the organization can be influenced by utilizing number of strategies which are elaborated below:

Building trust: It is identified that stakeholders of the organization cannot be influenced without trust and therefore one of the most important decision of developing trust is by being transparent about the various decision that is made.

Be clear about goals: It is very much necessary to clearly share the goals of the project in order to ensure that the stakeholders understand the benefits that they will achieve due to the project. Proper illustration of project goal generally influences the stakeholders of the organization.

Inspire confidence: Displaying confidence generally helps in influencing the stakeholders of the organization. If the stakeholders get to understand that the businesses confidently talk about hard and cold facts they get persuaded very much easily. 

The examples of external stakeholders are as follows:

Creditors: They are the lenders who eerily help the business in financing project, building as well as for purchasing assets.

Partners: The organization that are engaged for enabling business to develop proper shared visions, goals as well as strategies.

Customers: They are considered as the most immediate external stakeholder within an organization.

4 a) Manage stakeholder engagement

5 b) Stakeholder analyses

6 b) Initial

7 b) anyone positively or negatively impacted by the project

8d) Organizational process assets

9c) Manage Stakeholder engagement

10 b) Transfer these stakeholder to the project supports group, and for this stakeholder adopt the stakeholder management strategy defined for the project supports

11a) Manage closely

12a) Stakeholder register

13 c) the organization’s culture and structure

14b)  Analyse options that might change or influence the chief financial officer’s perception

15d) involve the stakeholders in decision making

16c) Keeping them informed throughout the project

17d) Only A & B

18c) Optimistic/Pessimistic 

Stakeholder Identification	Stakeholder power and interest in project and justification	Assessment information	Stakeholder classification	Potential strategies for engagement- gaining support and reducing objections
Project manager	The power of project manager is high as their main role is to successfully plan, design as well as execute the project successfully.  The interest of the project manager is also high as they keep all the stakeholders informed about the various stages of the project that will be mainly executed in order to make the project successful.	The main requirement of the project manager is to have clear idea about the project. In addition to this, they expect full collaboration and support with the involving stakeholders so that the project can be executed successfully.	Internal  Supporter	In order to engage the project managers and  for gaining  their support, it is quite necessary to provide clear goals as well as objectives of the project and utilize proper communication so that  the project managers can build proper relation with the project team members. This also helps in reducing objection from the side of project managers.
Developer	The power of the developer is high as they mainly engage in re-upgrading the archives website in order to keep the clients satisfied. Their interest in the project is high as they inform other stakeholder before proceeding with any change.	The developer needs clear idea about the changes so that they can easily upgrade the achieve website. Their expectation is to get proper support from both the higher authority as well as team members.	Internal Supporter	In order to involve them more in the project it is necessary to use effective communication, knowledge and skill sharing as well as increasing commitment towards project.
Tester	The power of tester is low as they monitor the usability of the website. The interest of the tester is high as they keep informed about the outcomes of the project.	The main requirement of the tester is to have proper information about the scenario in which they are involved. They want proper support and collaboration from the team members.	Internal Supporter	It is quite necessary to utilize proper communication strategies as well as proper commitment from the organization in order to keep them involved within the project.

 It is identified that in the implementation phase, the project tasks as well as activities are not executed within the estimated time and after proper analysis it is found that due to improper communication between the team members as well as project manager, differences in interest is created among the project stakeholders that created problems in completing the project (Cascetta et al. 2015).

In order to resolve this issue, it is very much necessary to arrange a meeting with the stakeholders of the project. Effective communication strategy must be utilized between the team members as well as project managers so that he activities of the project can be executed smoothly within the that is estimated without creating any type of problem. 

Influencing stakeholders through effective strategies

Stakeholder	Unaware	Resistant	Neutral	Supportive	Leading
Project manager					ü
Developer				ü
Tester				ü

Variance is defined as one of the measurable change from a known baseline or standard. It is identified that variance is generally the difference that mainly occur between the planned and what is generally accomplished by the actual engagement within the project.

It is found that variance within the planned and actual engagement generally occurs due to the following reason:

Inappropriate collaboration: In the absence of proper collaboration, variances occur between planned and actual engagement (Esmail, Moore and Rein 2015).

Ineffective communication: If proper communication is not utilized between the stakeholders of the organization then the engagement of stakeholder varies.

Lack of interest: If the stakeholders do not have proper interest within the project then their engagement within the project is low as compared to planned engagement.

In order to improve stakeholder engagement, it is very much necessary to follow steps that are as follows:

Communicate: In order to improve engagement of the stakeholders, it is very much necessary to utilize effective communication strategies (O’Riordan and Fairbrass 2014). Sharing information with the stakeholders is very much important for enhancing engagement.

Creating proper relationship: Developing relationship within the organization is important for enhancing trust, so that all the stakeholders of the organization can effectively work together.

Keeping track on new stakeholders: proper track on new stakeholders must be kept in order to engage them within the organization effectively (Luoma-aho 2015).

Managing risk: Stakeholders generally plays an influential role in managing risks of the project. It is identified that proper risk management assists in enhancing stakeholder engagement.

In the organization, the  expectation of the stakeholders in context to conflict that occur due to presence of team members of different skills can be clarified as well as identified by utilizing some of the  important strategies. It is found that effective communication method is quite useful in clarifying the expectation of the stakeholders. In addition to this, the expectations of the team members are accurately mapped with crystal clear view point for satisfying them. In addition to this, keeping the team members engaged throughout the process with proper timely updates helped in clarifying the expectation of the stakeholders. 

In spite of the strategies of stakeholder’s engagement, it is identified that the variance that is present between the expected and actual engagement of stakeholders is huge. Thus, in order to resolve the problem it is very much necessary to include personal development of project team members. Personal development is one of the way through which people can be able to assess their qualities as well as skills by considering their aims in life for maximizing as well as realizing their potential. This would be helpful in generating proper skills as well as qualities that will further let them engage with the work of the project.

Managing stakeholder engagement and analyzing stakeholders

In the execution phase, all the team members of the project are assigned work as per their expertise and each member of the team is provided with equal amount of work so that the workload of the project execution phase will be shared equally within the team members without developing stress among the team members. Proper times as well as resources are also provided so that the team members can be able to complete their work.

For ensuring that the team members operate within their defined roles, it is very much necessary to track the progress of the project. Proper arrangement of meeting is also helpful in order to know that whether the team members are able to work properly.

One of the team members of the project is facing problem in creating proper engagement with the work or project and the problem that is associated with it is his interpersonal skills, Thus he wants to develop his interpersonal skills with the help of the team members. In order to develop proper interpersonal skills, it is very much important to encompass number of soft skills including mentoring, leadership, problem solving, empathy, teamwork as well as negotiation. In addition to this, active listening practice is also necessary.

 The reasons that are helpful in leading a variance in stakeholder engagement are as follows:

• Brainstorming
• Incorrect or misleading content
• Stakeholder complaints
• Missing reports
• Untimely distribution

The process with which it can be ensured that stakeholders agree on the method of communication and level of engagement are as follows:

Communicate effectively: If the stakeholders communicate effectively between themselves then it can ensured that they agree on the method of communication.

Consult and plans with the team members: If the team members consults as well as plans with other team members while working then it can be ensured that they generally agree with the level of planned engagement (Esmail, Moore and Rein 2015).

Take entire responsibility: If the team members take entire responsibility of their s work then it can be analyzed that they are fully involved within the project and they agreed with the planned level of engagement.

While working with the planning phase of the project, it is identified that the report which contains information about the website does include all the information and as a result the stakeholders of the project does not able to get proper information about the project (Blok, Hoffmans and Wubben 2015).

In order to resolve this issue, proper information including the objectives as well as goals of the organizations is provided to all the stakeholders and the information are added in the reports in order to complete the project successfully within the estimated budget and time without creating any issue or challenges. 

References

Blok, V., Hoffmans, L. and Wubben, E.F.M., 2015. Stakeholder engagement for responsible innovation in the private sector: Critical issues and management practices. Journal on Chain and Network Science, 15(2), pp.147-164.

Cascetta, E., Carteni, A., Pagliara, F. and Montanino, M., 2015. A new look at planning and designing transportation systems: A decision-making model based on cognitive rationality, stakeholder engagement and quantitative methods. Transport policy, 38, pp.27-39.

Esmail, L., Moore, E. and Rein, A., 2015. Evaluating patient and stakeholder engagement in research: moving from theory to practice. Journal of comparative effectiveness research, 4(2), pp.133-145.

Luoma-aho, V., 2015. Understanding stakeholder engagement: Faith-holders, hateholders & fakeholders. RJ-IPR: Research Journal of the Institute for Public Relations, 2(1).

O’Riordan, L. and Fairbrass, J., 2014. Managing CSR stakeholder engagement: A new conceptual framework. Journal of Business Ethics, 125(1), pp.121-145.