BLUE TEAM
Lab 1: STAT
CS-410
Christian Oakley
5/9/2013
Version 1
Table of Contents
Introduction ...................................................................................................................................................................3
Product Description .......................................................................................................................................................4
Features.....................................................................................................................................................................4
Major Functional Components ..................................................................................................................................6
Case Study .....................................................................................................................................................................7
Identification .............................................................................................................................................................7
Classification..............................................................................................................................................................8
Attitude .....................................................................................................................................................................8
Influence....................................................................................................................................................................9
The Management Plan ..............................................................................................................................................9
STAT Prototype Description .........................................................................................................................................10
Prototype Architecture ...........................................................................................................................................11
Glossary .......................................................................................................................................................................12
Acronyms .....................................................................................................................................................................13
References ...................................................................................................................................................................13
List of Figures
Classification Visual .......................................................................................................................................................5
Action Plan .....................................................................................................................................................................5
Relationship Map ...........................................................................................................................................................5
Management Plan .........................................................................................................................................................5
Real World MFCD ..........................................................................................................................................................6
Prototype MFCD ..........................................................................................................................................................11
List of Tables
Classification Matrix ......................................................................................................................................................8
Attitude Matrix ..............................................................................................................................................................8
Relationship Matrix .......................................................................................................................................................9
Management Plan Matrix ..............................................................................................................................................9
List of Equations
NCSOSE Stakeholder Influence Formula ........................................................................................................................9
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Introduction
Every project aims to solve a problem. The keys to a problem lie within the entities influencing
the current situation and/or will be affected by the solution. These entities are known as
stakeholders. All aspects surrounding the project are in some way connected to various
stakeholders. They can be as largely important as the president of a company, or as minor to the
project as a supply truck driver. In any case, all stakeholders must be taken into consideration when
analyzing the project in its entirety. This can be accomplished by a method of examination known as
stakeholder analysis. Stakeholder analysis is the practice of evaluating a stakeholder’s influence on a
project based on various attributes (P. T. Hester).
Stakeholder analysis is not a new concept. It has been around for years and is often practiced by
project teams starting at the analysis phase of the development life cycle. Stakeholder analysis
methods may vary from very complex to very simple with some much more in depth than others.
Regardless of the method, it is common practice to perform stakeholder analysis manually(P. T.
Hester). Project teams will brainstorm together and put their thoughts on paper. Stakeholders and
their information are written down, analyzed, and physically moved around to portray their
relationships with one another and the influence they have on the project. Unfortunately,
stakeholders in systems problems seldom stay the same. Attitudes towards the project may change
and levels of influence fluctuate frequently. New stakeholders may also be identified throughout the
project duration. These changes may prove to be difficult to reflect in a manual manner less
sacrificing organization and information consistency. Any discrepancy, even the slightest, in
stakeholder analysis could be disastrous to a project. An electronic solution is needed to maintain
the organization and proper analysis skills a project needs to be successful.
The National Center for Systems of Systems Engineering (NCSOSE) has commissioned an
electronic version of their stakeholder analysis methods to be developed. This tool named NCSOSE’s
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stakeholder analysis tool (STAT) will incorporate their comprehensive methods of analysis while also
alleviating many of the problems associated with the currently popular practice of manual
stakeholder analysis. STAT will provide a dynamically changing visual environment that can be
accessed from a basic client computer. The intuitive design will be non-linear and create a workflow
where identification and attribute editing can be quick and easy. Most important of all, STAT will
implement the stakeholder analysis research of NCSOSE that will feed into a proprietary algorithm
and determine a stakeholder’s influence.
Manual methods provide one visual aid to help understand their stakeholders in the system
problem. Any managerial plan of action is solely dependent on a project manager’s creativity and
experience in dealing with stakeholders. STAT strives to remedy this task by providing a final
representation of the project’s overall analysis. Using the results of the various analysis engines, a
management plan can be formulated. This visual aid will help project teams make better sense of
the actual influence of all stakeholders involved and suggest a priority of engagement. Like all other
visuals in STAT, the management plan will dynamically change based on the adjustments of
stakeholder attributes.
Product Description
STAT will be a standalone application similar to other common desktop software such as Word
or Excel. The code will be generated in Java to ensure platform independence over various operating
systems. In keeping STAT as a single package application, a database will not be utilized. Instead,
projects will be saved on external XML files with a .stat extension.
Features
Stakeholder analysis (SA) may seem to follow the same procedural steps in every popular SA
methodology but considering all the updates and editing of information throughout the process, non-
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linearity should be taken into consideration. Stakeholders should be able to be added at any time and
their attributes should also be able to be determined or edited throughout the entire process. The
workspace area in STAT will capture the essence of this non-linear functionality by simplifying
stakeholder editing. The stakeholder and the attributes will be in a tabular format and simple binary
options or dropdowns will be displayed, ready to be edited at any time.
One of the major features that will differentiate STAT from other analysis tools is the collection
of visual aids to reference the many processes in stakeholder
analysis. A Venn diagram structure (Figure 1) will help visualize the
classifications that have been assigned to each stakeholder. An
action diagram (Figure 2) will let the user see how a stakeholder
should be dealt with
Figure 1 - The Classification Visual
based on their
classification and attitude. A stakeholder relationship map
(SRM) (Figure 3) will give the user an overview of the
Figure 2 - The Action Diagram
stakeholders involved in the project. The visuals in the SRM will
reflect each stakeholder’s classification, attitude, and show how
they are all related to one another. The final visual of STAT will be a
Figure 3 - The Relationship Map
stakeholder management plan (SMP) (Figure 4) based on all of the
collective information on the stakeholder’s throughout the
process. This visual is less of a diagram and more of a synopsis
and guideline that will help project managers determine
which stakeholders to focus their efforts on. With stakeholder
analysis being a dynamically changing process, each visual will
Figure 4 - The Management Plan
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be able to conform to every manipulation of a project and change its visual accordingly. This will be
accomplished through the calculations of a graphic rendering engine.
The heart of STAT’s design is the analysis engine structure that will run in the background. With
each edit to a project, an engine will be triggered to perform a portion of the analysis aspect of the
problem. One engine will focus on classifications and be able to categorize each stakeholder based on
three binary choices. Another engine will be able to determine attitude based on two binary choices.
The third engine is a bit more complex than the previous two. It will examine the various relationships
stakeholders have with one another and the strength of each relationship. The products of the first two
algorithms will provide inputs to this engine which will then combine the numbers derived from
stakeholder relationships along with the magnitudes of the relationships. They will all be calculated
together to determine a stakeholder’s overall influence on the project (P. T. Hester). The proprietary
algorithm used to power this influence engine was developed by the engineers from NCSOSE.
Major Functional Components
STAT is being designed to be a very straightforward desktop application. The software and
hardware involved are not complicated and will not require any special technology to function. The
hardware required solely consists of a client computer. At this moment the minimum required computer
specs are unknown and will not be determined until testing is complete. The software aspect of STAT is
comprised of a GUI, the analysis engines, a
graphic renderer, and an embedded database
that will output information to XML data files.
The entirety of the software can be
programmed in Java to create the standalone,
platform independent, Java application STAT is
Figure 5 - STAT Major Functional Components
designed to become.
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Case Study
The driving force behind the STAT program is the extensive research accomplished by the
system engineers of NCSOSE. This research center focuses on the study and development of new
methodologies and technologies in system’s theory. One of the current projects is the focus of new
decision making efforts in the world of stakeholder analysis. A paper describing their methodology by
Patrick Hester, Joseph Bradley, and Kevin Adams was published in 2013 titled “Stakeholders in Systems
Problems”. This research combines the previous studies of R. Freeman, R. Mitchell, G. Savage, and other
researchers in the field of stakeholder analysis and furthers the research by adding newly developed
NCSOSE discoveries. The NCSOSE stakeholder analysis method consists of first identifying each relevant
stakeholder and then analyzing three aspects of each one: classification, attitude, and relationships with
other stakeholders. The final product of this method is a management plan that summarizes everything
and provides a recommended plan of action (P. T. Hester).
Identification
The NCSOSE methodology’s initial starting point is the identification of relevant stakeholders.
This is sometimes known as the “brainstorming” step. Stakeholders are quickly named and not
examined in depth until later steps. To help differentiate the relevancy of the identified stakeholders,
the individual wants of each stakeholder are also identified. In every problem, every stakeholder will
affect or be affected by the outcome of the project. It is important to identify each want and eventually
put forth effort to appease or compromise as much as possible to ensure the project’s success. Once all
the stakeholders and their wants have been identified, the analysis processes can begin.
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Classification
The foundation of NCSOSE’s stakeholder analysis research extends the initial groundwork set
forth by Freeman in 1984. This work was later expanded by
Mitchell, Agle, and Wood in 1997 who introduced the
concept of categorizing stakeholders into various classes
based on their attributes. The three attributes are power,
legitimacy, and urgency and should be measured in relation
Table 1 - Stakeholder Classifications
to the current project being developed (Mitchell). Either a stakeholder has an attribute or does not have
it. This leads to the possibility of the stakeholder being classified in one of eight different classes. The
eight classes are further categorized into four classifications (Table 1) which will be used for the
following stakeholder analysis areas of NCSOSE’s methodology.
Attitude
The NCSOSE analysis method of determining a stakeholder’s attitude is derived from the
research of Savage, Nix, Whitehead, and Blair in 1992. They determined that a stakeholder’s attitude
can be placed in one of four categories based on: the stakeholder’s potential of threat to the project and
the stakeholder’s potential of cooperation with the project
(Table 2)(Savage). Using this attitude category, it can be
matched with the stakeholder’s classification on a special
matrix (Figure 2 pg. 5) to determine a recommended strategy
Table 2 - Stakeholder Attitudes
of engagement. Savage, Nix, Whitehead, and Blair determined four strategies based on the attitude/
classification comparison. NCSOSE added a fifth action to deal with stakeholders with little to no
significance towards the project (P. T. Hester). Stakeholders with little to no significance must also be
taken into consideration as their amount of influence may change throughout the course of the project.
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Influence
Once the identification process has been completed and the classifications and attitudes of each
stakeholder has been determined, there is still a high chance the overall influence each stakeholder
possesses on a project will be hard to distinguish from one another. The levels
of influence need to be more unique to eventually create a precise
management plan. Therefore, the relationships between stakeholders must
also be analyzed (Table 3)(P. T. Hester). The number, direction, and strength of
every relationship a stakeholder has with
Table 3 - Stakeholder
Relationships
other stakeholders are combined with the
information obtained from the classification and attitude analysis steps.
Equation 1 - Stakeholder Influence
Using an algorithm developed by NCSOSE (Equation 1), the overall amount of influence a stakeholder
has on the project can be determined. Once each stakeholder’s level of influence has been determined,
an accurate and detailed management plan can be developed.
The Management Plan
The resulting product of the identification process and three analysis steps is a recommended
plan of action labeled the “stakeholder management plan” or SMP for short (Table 4). This synopsis
combines all of the information about each stakeholder and lists them in an organized matrix-like visual
(P. T. Hester). The stakeholders make up the rows of this matrix. The name, wants, classification,
attitude, influence, and strategy make up the
columns of this matrix which have been derived
from the previous analysis steps. Other columns are
also added to further assist the project managers
Table 4 - Stakeholder Management Plan
with stakeholder management. These columns are:
method of engagement, proximity of engagement (Last Engaged), responsible party, and notes. By
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default, the matrix is in descending order by their strategy but it is important to be able to sort the
matrix by other columns depending on the project team’s task at hand. Every change in the overall
analysis of the project’s stakeholders will change the SMP and render a current SMP potentially useless.
Therefore, the SMP must be constantly updated with changes to ensure an accurate management plan.
STAT Prototype Description
The STAT prototype to be built is fairly simple and definitely feasible to the STAT project team.
The stakeholder analysis and management (SAM) requirements have been identified through multiple
meetings with the project mentors from NCSOSE. The five steps described in the NCSOSE stakeholder
analysis methodology will be the main focus of creating a functional prototype. Java is the programming
code chosen by the project team due to its platform interoperability qualities as well as the team’s
previous experience with the language. Keeping the prototype as a standalone Java program also
qualifies the prototype to be portable without relying on any outside servers or databases. A final
feature supported by the NCSOSE mentors is the ability to encrypt the .stat XML data files. This will
heighten the security measures of any project that requires restricted access.
The real world product (RWP) version of STAT will not differ too much from the prototype.
Minor additions to the STAT program imagined to be in the RWP version will exist to only enhance the
already sound architecture of the prototype. Features such as changing default colors, and making
stakeholders clickable in the supporting visuals are unnecessary but would improve the user experience.
Other features such as allowing STAT to run on portable devices may very well already be possible with
the prototype design, but it is not a focus of the development team to ensure this functionality. The
most desired feature of the RWP from the NCSOSE mentors is the ability of multiple users to
simultaneously input information during the identification or “brainstorming” step. This would mimic
how identification is performed during the current manual methods of stakeholder analysis. It would
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speed up the process and possibly create a broader range of potential stakeholders. Including this in the
program would require much more design and coding as STAT would have to be somehow centralized
with individual user connections. Although this feature is not feasible in the set amount of development
time, different methods to hopefully grant this request are being considered. It is the goal of the project
team to not only produce a functional prototype, but also potentially include as many RWP features as
time will permit.
Prototype Architecture
As stated earlier, STAT will be programmed in the Java programming language. This will be
accomplished by utilizing Oracle’s Java Virtual Machine (JVM) on the individual client computers of the
development team. Six main areas of focus will comprise the architecture: the GUI, SAM processes,
visuals, project settings, application settings, and an XML based file format. The GUI and visuals will be
powered by various features of the Java swing API. The SAM processes will be programmed
straightforward and require rigorous testing to ensure an exact reflection of the NCSOSE methodology.
The project and application settings will be developed in concurrence with the XML file format. Artificial
XML files consisting of project and application data will be
the primary means of testing the STAT program. The
creation of these files can be manually made to focus
testing on particular assets, or generated with the help of
created testing programs to test the system as a whole.
NCSOSE has expressed the desire to also use real data from
actual previous stakeholder analysis projects to compare
Figure 6 - STAT Prototype Major Functional Components
results.
Little hardware is required for the development of the prototype. Being a standalone desktop
application, there is no need for a centralized server or external database. The majority of work will be
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performed on the development team’s personal computers as mentioned earlier. A virtual lab computer
provided by the ODU computer science department will be set up with an Ubuntu operating system
strictly to act as a repository for the development team. Using this setup, the development team should
be able to focus on different areas of the program simultaneously and maximize the permitted
development time allotted.
Glossary

Attributes - Attributes describe the stakeholder. A stakeholder can have power, legitimacy, and
urgency.

Entity - An individual or organization involved in a project.
o

Project - A collaborative effort to accomplish a common goal.
o


Stakeholder
An effort to solve a problem
Relationship - The manner in which two entities are associated.
o
Connection
o
Link
Stakeholder - Someone who can affect or is affected by the achievement of the organization's
objectives.

o
Anyone with an interest in a project
o
Can be individuals or organizations
o
Interests may be affected by project execution
o
Have an influence over project objectives and outcomes
o
Entities
User - Potential operator of the STAT software.
o

Problem Solver
Visuals - Various methods that show information graphically.
o
Display
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Acronyms

GUI – Graphical User Interface

JVM – Java Virtual Machine

MFCD – Major Functional Component Diagram

NCSOSE – National Centers for System of Systems Engineering

ODU – Old Dominion University

RWP – Real World Product

SA – Stakeholder Analysis

SAM – Stakeholder Analysis and Management

SMP – Stakeholder Management Plan

SRM – Stakeholder Relationship Map

STAT – Stakeholder Analysis Tool

XML – Extensible Markup Language
References
Hester, P. T., Adams, K. M. "STAT development meeting." 2 April 2013.
Hester, P. T. "STAT development meeting 2." 26 April 2013.
Hester, P. T., Bradley, J. M., & Adams, K. M. "Stakeholders in Systems Problems. File last modified 3 April
2013." 2013. Microsoft Powerpoint File.
Hester, P. T., Bradley, J. M., & Adams, K. M. "Stakeholders in systems problems." International Journal of
System of Systems Engineering, 3(3/4) (2012): 225-232.
Mitchell, R. K., Agle, B. R., & Wood, D. J. "Toward a theory of stakeholder identification and salience:
Defining the principle of who and what really counts." Academy of Management Review, 22(4)
(1997): 853-886.
Savage, G. T., Nix, T. W., Whitehead, C. J., & Blair, J. D. "Strategies for assessing and managing
orgainizational stakeholders." The Executive, 5(2) (1991): 61-75.
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