Running Head: Lab 1 – STAT Product Description
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Lab 1 – STAT Product Description
CS 410/411 Blue Team
Brian Russell
CS 411
Janet Brunelle
November 29, 2013
Version 3
Lab 1 - STAT Product Description
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Table of Contents
1.
Introduction ............................................................................................................................. 4
2.
STAT Product Description ...................................................................................................... 6
2.1 Key Product Features and Capabilities of STAT .................................................................. 6
2.2 Major Hardware/Software Components ............................................................................. 11
3.
Identification of Case Study .................................................................................................. 12
4.
STAT Prototype ..................................................................................................................... 13
Glossary ........................................................................................................................................ 15
References ..................................................................................................................................... 16
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List of Figures
Figure 1 – Sticky Notes Being Used to Represent Stakeholders .................................................... 5
Figure 2 – SAM Steps ..................................................................................................................... 6
Figure 3 – Stakeholder Input........................................................................................................... 7
Figure 6 – Relationship Map........................................................................................................... 9
Figure 4 – Attitude Input................................................................................................................. 9
Figure 5 – Classification Input ........................................................................................................ 9
Figure 7 – Relationship Matrix ..................................................................................................... 10
Figure 8 – STAT Prototype MFCD .............................................................................................. 14
Figure 9 - Project XML File ......................................................................................................... 14
List of Tables
Table 1 - Classification Definitions ................................................................................................ 8
Table 2 – Stakeholder Management Plan ..................................................................................... 11
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1. Introduction
Stakeholder Analysis lies at the heart of every project. Stakeholders play a vital and
necessary role in any project. They can determine whether or not a project succeeds or fails. It is
important for the project leader to correctly identify everyone that they think should be a
stakeholder and whether or not they are a threat or a contribution to their project. Unfortunately,
project managers frequently neglect to identify or analyze requisite stakeholders properly, which
ultimately leads to the demise of their projects. In project management, stakeholders play a vital
role in the success or demise of a project. A better solution is needed to easily identify and
analyze stakeholders to maintain situational awareness throughout the problem solving process.
There is no clear industry standard for Stakeholder Analysis. The lack of standardization
suggests that project managers most often result to manual or improvised methods as seen in
Figure 1.
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Figure 1 – Sticky Notes being used to represent stakeholders
Stakeholders are commonly listed in one of “10 reasons projects fail” (Morphy, 2012). A
solution lies in 1) having a standardized and refined method to approach stakeholder analysis and
2) introducing that method through an easy to understand computer program. This is why
Stakeholder Analysis Tool (STAT) was created. STAT is a software solution that looks to
alleviate the currently primitive methods of stakeholder analysis. This tool will encompass
identifying, prioritizing, and analyzing stakeholders in a practical, visual environment. STAT
uses methods and topologies based on research of stakeholder analysis from National Center for
Systems of System Engineering (NCSOSE). Following the topologies developed by NCSOSE,
the Computer Science 410/411 Blue team has developed a user interface, and given the STAT
the ability to dynamically plot stakeholders.
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2. STAT Product Description
Through Java’s virtual running environment functionality, STAT is a platform independent
program that does not require a specific operating system to run. It is not a server-client program;
instead, it runs by itself on the user’s computer. This means no network connection is required.
2.1 Key Product Features and Capabilities of STAT
STAT uses five steps to analyze the key stakeholders and devise what kind of action the user
should take. They are Stakeholders, Classifications, Attitudes, Influence, and Management Plan.
Upon creating a new project, the program will, by default, walk the user through these steps as
seen in Figure 2. Typically, the user will go through these steps in a specific order, starting with
the “Stakeholders” step and ending with the “Management Plan” step; however, it is not required
that they always run through these steps in order. That is to say, the steps are non-linear.
Figure 2 – SAM Steps
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The “Stakeholders” step is where the user will enter the names of the stakeholders into
the program. Essentially, the only necessary piece of information here is a name for a given
stakeholder, but the user is also able to input the stakeholders wants and some notes about that
stakeholder. Error! Reference source not found. shows what the “Stakeholders” step might
look like. The Name, Wants, and Notes columns allow the user to input the information that was
Figure 3 – Stakeholder Input
described.
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Table 1 - Classification Definitions
During the “Classifications” step, the user must answer three yes or no questions about
every stakeholder: 1) “Is this stakeholder considered to have Power?”, 2) “Is this stakeholder
considered to have Legitimacy?”, and 3) “Is this stakeholder considered to have Urgency?”
NCSOSE adapted the meaning of these three classifications from their research in Stakeholder in
Systems Problems as seen in Table 1. This typology is available in STAT by simply answering
the three yes or no questions about each stakeholder as seen in Figure 5. The input for
stakeholder “Attitude” can be seen in Error! Reference source not found.. The selection made
in the two right-most columns control a stakeholder’s attitude. There are four attitudes:
Supportive, Mixed, Non-supportive, and Marginal. The user can either choose High or Low for
each, Threat and Cooperation. The user’s choice determines what that stakeholder’s Attitude will
be. Choosing Low Threat and High Cooperation will change the stakeholder’s Attitude to
Supportive, High Threat and Low Cooperation changes it to Non-supportive, High Threat and
High Cooperation changes it to Mixed, and, finally, Low Cooperation and Low Threat changes it
to Marginal.
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Figure 5 – Classification Input
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Figure 4 – Attitude Input
Figure 6 – Relationship Map
The “Influence” step starts by the user entering the influence that each stakeholder has on
every other stakeholder. This creates a relation between two stakeholders. The strength of a
relationship is quantified by three simple tiers: High, Medium, or Low. This is represented by
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the three choices ‘H’, ‘M’, or ‘L’, respectively, as seen in Figure 7. After the user inputs these
relationships, the program can take this data from each stakeholder, along with some of the data
gathered in the previous steps, and plots each stakeholder onto the relationship graph. Figure 6
shows the resulting graph, created by plotting each stakeholder according to their Attitude and
Classification. The choices that the user made about each stakeholder in the “Attitude” and
“Classification” steps are used to describe how each stakeholder is graphed. The graph makes it
clear which stakeholders hold a high influence. Stakeholders that have many arrows pointing
from them to others are likely to have a high influence on the project because they influence
many other stakeholders. This is useful because it allows the viewer to visually see which
stakeholder they should focus on and take action accordingly. After all the other steps are
completed, the program gathers all of the information that it has about the stakeholder and puts
it into the management plan as seen in Table 2. This is the end result of the SAM Steps and one
of the most important features of STAT.
Figure 7 – Relationship Matrix
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Table 2 – Stakeholder Management Plan
2.2 Major Hardware/Software Components
STAT is a simple standalone software solution that does not require stringent computer
specifications. STAT will not require an internet connection to run and does not need to even be
installed on the user’s computer. The exact minimum requirements have not be determined as of
yet, but it is speculated that any computer that has an up-to-date version of Java will be able to
run STAT with ease.
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3. Identification of Case Study
NCSOSE sought to develop a new approach to stakeholder analysis centered on the questions
"How can we identify [stakeholders]?", "What strategies can [be employed] to engage the
stakeholders?”, and “What should [one] do to get their support?” (Hester & Adams, STAT
Meeting #1, 2013).
Stakeholders exist at the center of any systems problem. They are customers, clients,
suppliers, employees, etc. A stakeholder is anyone who can effect or be effected by a project.
Their existence funds systems, design it, build it, operate it, maintain it, and dispose of it.
(Hester, Stakeholders in System Problems, 2013)
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4. STAT Prototype
The prototype of STAT will consist of basic functionality, but still have the core concept
of what STAT is. The GUI will be powered by the Java Swing library. STAT must be able to
dynamically plot stakeholders as seen in Figure 6 – Relationship Map. This means that this graph
will change as the user adds or deletes stakeholders. The program must be able to correctly rerender this graph every time a change is made to the project. Among the other views that STAT
must dynamically produce are the less graphically demanding tabular views that are in each
SAM Step, “Stakeholders”, “Influences”, and “Management Plan”, as seen in Error! Reference
source not found.,
Figure 7, and Table 2. The tabular views, essentially, are the only place in the program where
user input affects or changes a stakeholder in the project.
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Figure 8 – STAT Prototype MFCD
STAT’s save file format is a simple low space XML file consisting of just text as seen in
Figure 9. The only information that is stored in the save file is the input decisions of the SAM
Steps. There are no images or graphics saved per project, all graphics are generated either by the
user entering data through the SAM Steps (option A in Figure 8Error! Reference source not
found.) or by loading the XML file from a previously saved project (option C in Figure 8).
Figure 9 - Project XML File
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Glossary

ODU- Old Dominion University

CS- Computer Science; used to refer to ODU’s Computer Science program.

CS 410/411 Blue Team- Christian Oakley, Brian Russell, Ezra Reeves, Okechukwu
Wyche, and Chris Spillers; The team that is developing the Stakeholder Analysis Tool;
The Blue team that is enrolled in Computer Science 410/411 as of Spring 2013/Fall 2013
respectively.

STAT- Stakeholder Analysis Tool. STAT is the program developed by the CS 410/411
Blue Team.

NCSOSE- National Center for System Of Systems Engineering. NCSOSE is pronounced
“nexus”. When used in the context of this paper it primarily refers to research of
stakeholders that was presented to the CS 410/411 Blue Team by Patrick Hester and
Kevin Adams. NCSOSE is a company that does research on system engineering
problems and possible solutions.

MFCD- Major Functional Component Diagram.

SAM- Stakeholder Action Management. Used in the context of SAM Steps. The 5 steps
are “Stakeholders”, “Classifications”, “Attitudes”, “Influences”, and “Management Plan”.

GUI- Graphical User Interface. The view that the user sees and uses to interact with a
computer program using a mouse and keyboard.
Lab 1 - STAT Product Description
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References
Hester, P. T. (2013, April 3). Stakeholders in System Problems.
Hester, P. T., & Adams, K. (2013, April 26). STAT Development Meeting 2. (B. Russell,
Interviewer)
Hester, P. T., & Adams, K. (2013, March 14). STAT Meeting #1. (B. Russell, Interviewer)
Morphy, T. (2012, January 7). Avoid Project Failure - Manager Your Stakeholders. Retrieved
May 9, 2013, from Ezine Articles: http://ezinearticles.com/?Avoid-Project-Failure--Manage-Your-Stakeholders&id=6799927
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