Stakeholders... the essence of projects (by Waleed Elmhrate)

Stakeholder engagement is a critical success factor for any project. project manager is the key communicator for  the project and stakeholder engagement is one of the major  PM responsibility  .

Leadership and negotiation skills are mandatory soft skills that PM should have in order to lead and engage stakeholders to achieve project goals and objectives.

Stakeholder engagement  is an iterative process and should follow progressive elaboration approach  which should include :

• Identify stakeholder and build stakeholder register
• Analyse stakeholder using power /interest grid
• Develop stakeholder strategy
• Engage with stakeholder
• Assess stakeholder engagement strategy and keep continues improvement

PM starts  his project journey from initiating stage  by identifying project board ( steering committee ) -key stakeholders -which should classify into three major categories  : Business , User , Supplier and should be documented in the project charter .

 Stakeholder identification process is a continues process throughout project lifecycle and PM should keep monitoring and update stakeholder register. Throughout project lifecycle especially if the project will take long-time , stakeholder role and reasonability may change so PM should keep stakeholder register  and engagement strategy updated and announce any change as per  agreed communication plan . 

It is recommended to keep key stakeholder register in progress status report in order to keep notify stakeholder with any change.    

Stakeholder engagement strategy may vary based on project delivery approach, which is Waterfall, Agile and Hybrid.

Common reason which may cause project failure or delay is missing to identify project key stakeholders so PM should have high attention to stakeholder.