Preparing for the Exam with PMBOK Guide—Fifth Edition (Part 12): Stakeholder Management

Following 20 years at a large Canadian telecommunications firm, Bruce established the project management consulting firm Solutions Management Inc (SMI). Since 1999, he has provided contract project/program management services, been a source for project management support personnel and created/delivered courses to over 7,000 participants in Canada, the United States and England.

  Career Development   Stakeholder Management   Using PMI Standards  

Have you ever watched an event like the Super Bowl, a football league championship or any other deciding event and found the event didn’t match the hype?

While nowhere near that level of completion, I recently ran a race for which I had spent endless hours preparing, only to find I didn’t have anyone within 30 seconds of me either ahead or behind (I sure was not in first place!) as I completed the last mile.

When I recently facilitated a PMP preparation boot camp, I sensed the 20 participants were expecting something exciting as we addressed the 10^th and final PMI knowledge area. As with the events above, it was anticlimactic. The latest addition to the knowledge area “family” involves four processes and contains very straight-forward ITTOs (Inputs, Tools & Techniques, and Outputs).

Although Plan Stakeholder Management is one of the four processes, it’s not the first one. Check table 3-1 to note that this is only the second knowledge area where there is another process before “plan.” The first process is Identify Stakeholders. After studying nine other knowledge areas in over 40 processes, the inputs have become very familiar.

The only noteworthy ITTOs are stakeholder analysis and the output of a stakeholder register. During analysis, each of the identified stakeholders are reviewed to determine how critical their …

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