Staking Out the Stakeholders

  Manufacturing  

We all know the definition of who stakeholders are: They are people who are either directly involved in a project, who may be impacted by a project or who can influence a project. The need to involve these people is very important because without the key people, a project can have incomplete requirements, political issues, implementation problems and so on. Without a doubt, there is a strong need to identify stakeholders as early as possible.

Track Them
One of the tasks is to formally document potential stakeholders. The Stakeholder Map is an Excel file, a simple template that can be used for tracking and high-level influence mapping. Shortly, we'll discuss the use of a map in more detail.

Automatic Considerations
There are certain groups that project teams always need to consider. It is a wise idea to have a list of the various "typical" stakeholder categories to use as a guide. For example, while discussing the project with your sponsor(s), you may want to discuss representation from some or all of the following areas:

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