We’ve started a new series of posts concerning the project management best practice processes described in the Project Management Institute’s Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK Guide). So far we’ve covered Develop Project Charter, and Identify Stakeholders. This post addresses Plan Stakeholder Engagement.
What’s the purpose of Plan Stakeholder Engagement?
Identify Stakeholders identifies, classifies and prioritizes the stakeholders. Since the number of Stakeholders is likely to be large, not all Stakeholders will handled the same way – some stakeholders may not be contacted by the project at all. This process creates the Stakeholder Engagement Plan, which describes which stakeholders will be engaged, and in what way – the Stakeholder Engagement Strategies.
What is a Stakeholder Engagement Strategy?
There are many different ways to engage stakeholders in a project. The appropriate strategy for a particular stakeholder, or group of stakeholders, is carefully crafted based on a variety of factors such as the level of stakeholder interest, their ability to impact the project, their personality, your personality, their location etc. Remember that not all stakeholders will necessarily support your project, and those stakeholders that do support you, may do so for different reasons.
Strategies can be as varied as inviting stakeholders to be on the project team, meeting them for coffee, including them in testing processes, reviewing documentation together, etc.
The goal is to increase/maintain levels of stakeholder engagement, since engaged stakeholders are ultimately easier to monitor and manage.
Who performs Plan Stakeholder Engagement?
The project manager typically creates the Stakeholder Engagement Plan (which is sometimes not as widely distributed as other areas of the Project Management Plan). Input is sought from anyone with knowledge of a particular stakeholder, their attitudes, likes, dislikes etc.
Interested to know more about this process?
Check out one of our project management best practices courses.