Stakeholder Analysis

What is a stakeholder analysis, and why might I need one?

Stakeholder classification

When the project community is very large

·         Affecting large and diversified groups

·         As with infrastructure projects

·         Such as public works or services

·         It is useful to classify the stakeholder groups

·         And prioritize their linkages

·         According to their potential impact on the project

·         To make the management task manageable

Stakeholder groupings - 1

Stakeholders may be found in any of the following groupings

A) Those who directly relate to the project

·         E.g. suppliers of inputs, consumers of outputs

·         And all those involved in the project process itself

B) Those who have direct influence

·         Over the physical, infrastructure, technological, commercial/financial/socio-economic or legal conditions

Stakeholder groupings - 2

C) Those who have a hierarchical relationship to the project

·         E.g. government authorities at local regional or national levels

D) Those individuals, groups ands associations who have vested interests

·         Sometimes quite unrelated to the project

·         But who see it as a means to their own ends

·         Such as competitors or special interest groups

Prioritizing into categories

Having identified the various groupings

·         Each may be assigned to a priority category

·         We suggest one of three

·         According to their relative ability to influence the project

·         Further subdivision is possible

·         But not usually necessary

The three categories

Generally, there are three levels

1. Those whose requirements can be modified or constrained

·         E.g. the customers

2. Those whose requirements can be influenced

·         E.g. not necessarily the formal customers, but nonetheless are significantly impacted

3. Those who must be appreciated

·         Because they are indirectly affected by the project

Maintaining healthy linkages

·      Armed with the foregoing information

·         Assign responsibility to members of the team

·         To look after the various groups

·         To spread the workload

·         According to the most appropriate responsibility area

·      On very large sensitive projects

·         Adopting a public relations policy is valuable