Managing Stakeholder Perceptions: Aligning Objectives with Measurable Outcomes to meet Stakeholder Expectations by Melville Arueyingho, MPM.
Posted by admin on Apr. 22, 2025 / Subscribe 0
Importance of Stakeholders
Stakeholders can be described as individuals or groups who have an interest in, are affected by or can influence the outcome of any project. To make sure they are tuned in to a project they should be identified and classified for their roles to be identified and clearly delineated. Failure to properly identify all stakeholders can have a detrimental effect to a projects success and running it off the rails in no time. To be able to manage their perceptions there has to be an understanding of the roles they play, how they see themselves (perception) and how they can best be managed to stay engaged for the full term of the project.
What is value to a stakeholder?
Each project embarked on has a goal of providing value through outcome delivery and stakeholders perceive value based on the impact to their businesses of their investments. Communication is key. The relevant stakeholders need to be identified and registered, their roles/relevance to the project highlighted and an understanding of their expectations gained to be able to create a statement of work in the planning phase that meets all their requirements. Value is determined by the impact of the project and can be subjective based on the role and level of the stakeholder from their point of view. As a result, it is important to understand what role each stakeholder represents to know what outcomes they focus on.
An example of the stakeholder register and relevant information is listed below:
|
Field |
Description |
|
Name |
Name of stakeholder group |
|
Role |
Their role in organization and project |
|
Contact Information |
Preferred communication channel (phone or email) |
|
Interest Level |
Level of involvement/interest in project |
|
Influence Level |
Organizational ability to impact project |
|
Engagement Strategy |
Communication mode |
|
Expectations |
Their desired outcome from project |
|
Notes/Comments |
Noted preferences |
The stakeholder register is used to record key information about the stakeholders for project managers to be able to map out a plan for effective communication, maintain engagement alignments with relevant stakeholders during the project lifecycle and manage expectations by identifying the key players early. Importance of the stakeholder register include the following:
-
Supports the development of an effective communication plan
-
Identifies the key players from the onset
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Mitigates risk by incorporating stakeholder input and concerns
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Ensures continuous engagement and alignment throughout project lifecycle
Maintaining an efficient stakeholder register ensures that stakeholders are engaged at every juncture subject to their role and relative to their investment.
Project Sponsor
Project sponsor are the conduit between the project manager and the organizations leadership group to ensure the project receives the necessary resources needed to project close and are often the project initiators. Project sponsors are usually senior leaders or executives who champions a project by providing strategic direction and secures project resources for efforts that serve business goals. They are also relevant to getting buy-in among other stakeholders aligning them to the outcomes they monitor the project and remove roadblocks when the project team cannot navigate on their own. They can be described as an extension of the project team, though they are not involved in the day-to-day execution of the project. Their influence and support is vital to any project’s success. It is very important that project sponsors are up to date with the temperature of their organization to know when to push a project through, and when to hold back. Proposing projects at inopportune times, regardless of the impact need or value preposition can derail it from the start. External and internal factors need to be considered, not just the need for a value add. An example is starting a project in the middle of a holiday season does not give one the full benefit of an organizations capacity with people getting ready for vacation or the holidays. You run the risk of major pushback and creating opposition to a critical project thus gaining less than optimal buy-in needed from all the relevant stakeholders.
Different types of stakeholders
For all stakeholders to be identified and given the relevant level of importance and exposure there needs to be a stakeholder register that identifies their relevance relative to the project, spells out their roles and responsibilities and levels of interest and importance to the project.
Note only internal stakeholders are given a priority in engagement.
|
Stakeholder |
Example |
|
Internal |
Project team, project sponsor, department managers |
|
External |
Community groups, clients, vendors |
|
Primary |
Users directly impacted |
|
Secondary |
Those indirectly affected, support teams, public users |
Project Milestones
The role of project milestones serves to check project progress against stakeholder expectations and make corrections/realignments where expectations have been misaligned and outcomes are derailed, this increasing either the cost, timeline, or both, this hampering the project completion and making waste resources which may be detrimental to the project. Milestones can be used to measure the impact and provide feedback where those communication channels are open. They can also be used for organization temperature checks, as where it is perceived there is a gap between desired outcomes and actual reality relevant stakeholders can make their voices know in different ways. For example, the approval of a key deliverable may be held back if the perceived impact is viewed negatively. Also funding reviews and stakeholder sign-off may be affected, or key launch or go-live dates may be postponed due to lack of perceived value driven by the project. Inversely, these milestones may be used to correct wrong perceptions and boost buy-in for the project and enable continuation with a new lease of life for stalled projects.
Concluding with the key takeaways that a well-drawn up stakeholder register properly managed by a project sponsor make a big difference managing stakeholder perceptions, and milestones can be used to reset these perceptions for positive outcomes.
Comments are welcome.
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