The concept of stakeholders evolving these days for many reasons especially the funding of project from more than one source. There is need being felt to to address such stakeholders who are associated to projects , programs and portfolios indirectly and way passively.
This has been noted and recorded across the domain of construction professionals that method to evaluate the association of such external stakeholders and their interest into the projects is still not being regarded.
There is process of award of project and once project is formalized, the aim for having good impression by achieving the certain target dates distract Management and team from unforeseen challenges such as the managing the external stakeholder. No matter, such risks are captured into the Risk Log.
There are many failed examples where project manager and the team could not capture the stakeholders appropriately, consequently, they may not benefit with the all that rush during the start of project.
Let say a Project Manager was micro-managing the team and sub-contractors post the award of project. Over the time and during the mid of the project, the Project Manager realized, he was not sharing the progress with one of Insurance specialist appointed by indirect stakeholder to safeguard its interest. Consequently, the matter was escalated with the lenders (financer) and it was asked to not release any further finance until project status is audited and verified by them.
This resulted into the breach of confidence between the parties and it was presumed by the lenders that one of its stakeholders is being ignored purposefully to hide the project delays while as matter of fact the projects performance KPI's were reporting a positive posture of project.
This action by the lenders delayed payment to suppliers, subcontractors and day-to-day finances and impacted the project completion date . Interestingly, this aspect was not on the critical path of project.
Therefore, its essential for todays project managers to take care of its passive stakeholders who may not be in the picture of project ,however, may influence in a way to distort the overall portray of project.
Saving Changes...
Good reminder that it is not always the stakeholder who screams the loudest that a PM should be concerned about. The quiet ones might be the ones who stick the knife in your (project's) back...
"You can make more friends in two months by becoming interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get other people interested in you."
