Involve your stakeholders wisely

Pilar Flores Romero, Karin Grasenick | 29 September 2021

Stakeholders are defined as all parties, including people, communities, and organisations, that impact or are impacted by the project. Stakeholders can be both internal and external to the project.
Hence, an important aspect for every organisation or project is to analyse interests and influences of stakeholders. This involves the identification of all the parties (people, organisations, etc.) affected by the project as well as documentation of their interests, potential participation, and influence or impact.

Stakeholders are defined as all parties, including people, communities, and organisations, that impact or are impacted by the project.

Stakeholders can be both internal and external to the project. They can influence a project direction significantly, e. g. by financing it or by relying on a strong social network. Other stakeholders might have little opportunity to influence or even shape conditions for their participation, even though they are affected by it (see “Be aware of organisational power relations”). Depending on how a project is perceived to impact their interests, stakeholders will be either supportive, rather neutral, or obstructive, even destructive to the project. Demotivation, passive resistance, and badmouthing should not be underestimated in this context (see also Vogwell, 2003).

Hence, an important aspect for every organisation or project is to analyse interests and influences of stakeholders. Stakeholder interests might not be aligned with the official goals of a project and might contradict each other. Moreover, they might change (see “Complexity in projects”).

Analysis and strategic stakeholder management is therefore critical to the success of projects.

Strategic stakeholder management comprises

• identification and analysis of stakeholders,
• strategies for stakeholders’ engagement and communication,
• and monitoring of stakeholders’ engagement.

The derived strategy must be reviewed regularly as projects and stakeholders’ interests change over time.

Identify your stakeholders

This involves the identification of all the parties (people, organisations, etc.) affected by the project as well as documentation of their interests, potential participation, and influence or impact (see Table).
Tools and techniques refer to information collection, analysis and representation via:

• involvement of experts (interviews, focus groups), research of relevant documents
• descriptive analysis of potential interests, power, influence (positive/negative) and further relationships of stakeholders
• analysis of measures concerning engagement and communication
• representation, visualisation either as social network graph, or as a table, for example in a so called “power matrix”, see e.g. https://www.stakeholdermap.com/stakeholder-matrix.html.

Governance and Stakeholder Diversity:

Every organisation, project, has representatives, persons who represent specific funding or partner organisations, societal interest groups, or scientific communities. Representatives are often selected or elected based on informal networks and unquestioned assumptions who is best suited for a certain position. Competences are often judged from outward appearance, roles and task areas are assigned based on informal recommendations. Governance following EDI principles can counteract biases by setting up facilitated processes for such decisions and by emphasising transparency, and a respectful, inclusive communicative culture. Involving stakeholders differently gives new impetus to innovative approaches and success.

Engage your stakeholders

Stakeholder engagement may vary from primary information exchange to decision making and co-creation processes.

In complex projects, decisions made and information exchanged with one group of stakeholders does not automatically include other groups in an adequate way. Power asymmetries and complexity can lead to processes and decisions perceived as non-transparent or even exclusive.

For governance committed to EDI principles it is therefore crucial to ensure that communication, engagement, and decision-making processes are designed adequately. Communicating with each stakeholder appropriately can play a vital role in keeping them on board (see also https://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newPPM_08.htm).

To consider the diversity of stakeholders, to setup appropriate processes for regular interaction between different stakeholders can facilitate their active participation (see also PMBOK® GUIDE, 2017).

Such planning includes different forms of meetings and information, clear regulations on how decisions are taken and by whom. It must be considered that perceptions of what is perceived as respectful communication can vary significantly. With more different cultures, disciplines, and hierarchy levels, communication itself becomes more complex (see “Communicate constantly”).