Catanduanes State University Virac, Catanduanes GRADUATE SCHOOL PhDEM 508 Project Development and Management 1st Semester, School Year 2023 – 2024 STAKEHOLDER ANALYSIS A Stakeholder Analysis is the process of identifying people who are involved with or have influence on or are affected by your community of practice and grouping them according to their levels of participation, interest, and influence in the community. It is also used to determine how best to involve and communicate to each of the stakeholder groups. The conduct of stakeholder analysis is necessary before starting the actual process of creating a Community of Practice (CoP). Company or organizational projects require participation, guidance, and approval from a wide range of people across the organization. If they don’t understand or agree with the project’s objectives or execution plan, any of these company stakeholders can become obstacles to the project’s success. However, if you enlist the help and approval of these stakeholders early on, you can turn many of these individuals into avid supporters of your initiatives. This is why it is a smart strategy to conduct a stakeholder analysis before launching any complex company project, identifying all potential stakeholders and determining how best to earn their support. Conducting a stakeholder analysis can be strategically valuable when kicking off any type of complex company or organizational undertaking. The more stakeholders you can identify early on and the more you can tailor your communication to win approval and support from various stakeholders, the more likely your project is to succeed. A Stakeholder Analysis is important for several strategic reasons, including: 1. To enlist the help of key organizational players. By approaching company or organizational influencers, executives, or valuable stakeholders for help early in your project, you can leverage the knowledge and wisdom of these key players to help guide the project to a successful outcome. Enlisting these players early on will also increase the chances you will earn their support for your project. But before you can determine which influencers and other key stakeholders to approach, you’ll need to conduct a stakeholder analysis. 2. To gain early alignment among all stakeholders on goals and plans. Because your stakeholder analysis will help you determine which people to involve in the project, you will then be able to bring these people together for a kick-off and early-stage meetings to communicate the project’s strategic objectives and plans. 3. To secure key support - You can approach key influencers, executives, team and project leaders, and other valuable stakeholders in your organization for help early in the project. You can then leverage their knowledge, wisdom, and influence to help set the direction for your CoP and ensure its success. Enlisting these individuals early also increases the chances of gaining their buy-in, their feeling of ownership, and of earning their ongoing support. The Stakeholder Analysis helps you determine who these influencers and other key stakeholders are. 4. To help address conflicts or issues early on - Without a Stakeholder Analysis, you and your team could be far into the development of a community of practice before you realize that a key person in your organization—perhaps a team leader in a different but related division - does not see value in your initiative, might see it as a threat to other priorities, and might prefer to redeploy resources to other projects. Such a person might actively work to thwart or derail your project. If you had conducted a Stakeholder Analysis beforehand, you might have identified this team leader as potentially important to your project’s success. You could have then presented your plans, listened to the objections, and worked to earn their support or their agreement not to obstruct. Steps in Conducting Stakeholders Analysis 1. Determine who your stakeholders are Start by brainstorming with your team a list of all possible stakeholders for your project. Of course, you can reduce this list later, but you don’t want to miss a potentially pivotal stakeholder at this early stage. 2. Group and prioritize these stakeholders. After you’ve completed your brainstorming session above and determined which people and teams will indeed be stakeholders, you should start categorizing them in terms of their influence, interest, and levels of participation in your project. Once you have the long list of people and organizations that are affected by your work. Some of them may have the power either to block or advance. Some may be interested in what you are doing, others may not care. This is where the Power-Interest grid comes in handy in segregating/prioritizing the stakeholders. Doing this helps in identifying stakeholders based on their power and interest in the project. When you plot your stakeholders on a power/interest grid, you can determine who has high or low power to affect your project, and who has high or low interest. People with high power need to be kept satisfied, while people with high interest need to be kept informed. When a stakeholder has both, you have to make sure that you manage his expectations very closely. The above figure explains the different approach we should have for the segregated/prioritized stakeholders. High power - High interest: these are the stakeholders are decision makers and have the biggest impact on the project success and hence you must closely manage their expectations. High power - Low Interest: these are the stakeholder needed to be kept in loop, these stakeholders need to be kept satisfied even though they aren’t interested because they yield power. These type of stakeholders should be dealt with cautiously as well since they may use their power in a not desired way in the project if they become unsatisfied. Low power – High interest: keep these people adequately informed, and talk to them to ensure that no major issues are arising. These people can often be very helpful with the detail of your project. Low power - low interest: monitor these people, but do not bore them with excessive communication. ----------Refrences: https://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newPPM_07.htm
