Ashok PatraProject Manager| Tech Mahindra LtdBhubaneswar, Odisha, India
We all know effective management of stakeholders is critical to project success. Sometimes one or more stakeholders may be negative and impact the project delivery. Reasons of their negativity may vary which may include personal grudges on the persons who sponsors and who gets benefited by project success. As a project manager in these situations, what steps should be taken to manage these negative stakeholders ? Saving Changes...
Bala S DuvvuriProject Manager| ShellBangalore, Karnataka, India
1.Understand the actual reasons for their negativity.If you think you can handle it as a project manager have a one-to-one discussion and try to understand from their perspective. 2.Explain the benefits if the project is success and ask for their cooperation. 3.Take the help of other key stakeholders and try to influence the negative stakeholders. 4.If nothing works out escalate it to the concerned people and let them know the impact of the negative stakeholders.
Key is the proper stakeholder analysis combined with communication management.
I understand that it is not that simple but you need to bring out some of your project manager skills. Saving Changes...
saurabh mahajanPMP, ITIL, PRINCE2| vodafonePune, Maharashtra, India
Great points from Bala. My cents to add here :
1) Analyze the stakeholder. How much influence he/she has on project success. If not much then you need to just keep the stakeholder informed and happy.
2) If he/she has great amount of influence on project success then analyze his/her needs/expectation from project. It can be financial/personal expectation
3) Show him/her the results expected by them in presentation format.
4) Build a stakeholder relationship
5) Keep handy a stakeholder analysis matrix to track the change in stakeholder behavior (supportive,not supportive yet)
6) Be persistent to make them support you for project success. (PM's influential skills into play :-) ) Saving Changes...
Senior Projects Manager | Field & Marten AssociatesNew Westminster, British Columbia, Canada
Bala and Saurabh mentioned the key points and I would like to emphasize the important of analyzing stakeholders properly.
Generally speaking, people who act to reflect negatively on projects because of personal grudges should be handled properly and if possible be removed from the project. It happens, and from my humble experience, these stakeholders are usually not key ones otherwise they won't let their grudge overrule over the project success. Saving Changes...
in one of our internal project, during project planning, one stakeholder group was opposing project and continued even during implementation just because they did not wanted any change. Their influence was limited only to their segment
Implementation in their segment was postponed
After implementation others started to get benefit from project.
We continued always to involve and communicate them about project progress during planning & benefits that others are getting after implementation
Gradually their negativity reduced and after few weeks they accepted & supported next phase Saving Changes...
Aejaz ShaikhPM I| Alyx Technologies India Pvt LtdPune, Maharshatra, India
One of the key way to handle negative stakeholder it to go back to basic. I'll refer the stakeholder wrt the Power-Influence Grid. The strategy to handle will be based on which quadrant the stakeholder falls into. Saving Changes...
Ashok PatraProject Manager| Tech Mahindra LtdBhubaneswar, Odisha, India
Thanks all for your response. Great points to use for managing a negative stakeholder. Saving Changes...
Negativity of the stakeholder in general needs to be broken down to two areas or aspects:
1) Personal negativity which affects the project
2) Questioning the projects key goals and parameters itself.
Also , need to take into account which quadrant the stakeholder falls into and then suitable chalk out action plans.
If the negativity falls into the first category then it has to be noted down and looked for more details in that direction .
If the negativity falls into the second category, then it must be recorded and a proper unbiased analysis need to be done.in some cases it may make some sense to have a different view point and weigh the same to the merits of the case rather than to label it as purely negativity. Saving Changes...
Sergio Luis ConteHelping to create solutions for everyone| Worldwide based OrganizationsBuenos Aires, Argentina
The fist thing is to understand that there is not positive or negative stakeholders. There are stakeholders that have an attiture or behaivour related to the project. Obviously you can use those words to clasify the attitute. Stakeholder analysis activity is critical from the very begining. Stakeholders attitude is defined for the starkeholder perception of reality and because of that it is a subject matter. You have to work on stakeholder perception. The tool I use from years is a selling method named "Solution Selling" or "SPIN selling".
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1 reply by Markus Kopko
Feb 08, 2016 2:30 AM
Markus Kopko
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totally agree with Sergio here
and thx for the tool hint, will have a look into it
Saving Changes...
Stéphane ParentSelf Employed / Semi-retired| Leader MakerPrince Edward Island, Canada
Find ways to:
1) reduce their importance
2) reduce their influence Saving Changes...
Markus KopkoAI Enabler for Project & Program Mgmt | Founder PMotion.ai / The PM
AI Coach| PMotion.aiHamburg, Hamburg, Germany
Feb 04, 2016 9:56 AM
Replying to Sergio Luis Conte
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The fist thing is to understand that there is not positive or negative stakeholders. There are stakeholders that have an attiture or behaivour related to the project. Obviously you can use those words to clasify the attitute. Stakeholder analysis activity is critical from the very begining. Stakeholders attitude is defined for the starkeholder perception of reality and because of that it is a subject matter. You have to work on stakeholder perception. The tool I use from years is a selling method named "Solution Selling" or "SPIN selling".
totally agree with Sergio here
and thx for the tool hint, will have a look into it Saving Changes...
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