What are the stakeholders?

All companies have individuals or groups directly or indirectly affected by projects and activities done by that company; they are called stakeholders.

Who all can be stakeholders?

The project team members

• Everyone involved directly with the project
• e.g in an IT project the BA, PM, developers, testers, etc are stakeholders

Users

• They could be internal or external to the company
• They enter input or receive output in/from the project
• e.g Customers, End-Users

Suppliers

• Suppliers could be stakeholders as their existing process may be impacted by the new project
• Their Service Level Agreement may change

Employees

They could be:

• The upper management executives that directly influence the project
• Indirect users of the project who may reference the data from the project

Community

If the project is built for external use e.g parks or libraries; then their users will be affected and so they become the stakeholders of the project and their inputs would be accommodated. If the project is useless to them then it is a failure.

Professional Organisations

• They are institutions and organizations that can influence the project
• e.g Government, Employee Unions, etc

Individuals impacted by the project

• E.g If the project is external to a company like a public library building being built for a community, then the owners of the existing structure where the new project will come up become the stakeholders in the project

Individuals supporting the project

• Teams providing maintenance support to the project should be involved from the beginning as stakeholders

 

Why Identify Stakeholders?

More Ideas

• More stakeholders mean more minds. More minds translate into more ideas. This advantage can help you to formulate multiple solutions to a problem.
• Also, it will help you to avoid risks and solve problems more efficiently.

Multiple Perspectives

• Having multiple stakeholders gives you a chance to look at a project from different viewpoints. Different stakeholders will work with the same project differently.
• Different perspectives will help you to see the project in different lights. This will strengthen your understanding of the project. The more thoroughly you understand the project the more efficiently you can simplify its working, predict failures and take preemptive measures and make the project successful for everyone impacted by it and not just a few key ones.
• E.g. The Users of the system will work with it differently compared to the Managers, who in turn will work with the system differently compared to Executives.

Gain Buy-ins

• The project can be a success only if the stakeholders believe it will benefit them. Else, they will oppose it as change is difficult and uncomfortable. Hence sell the benefits to the stakeholders to get their buy-in and support for the project.

Instill a Sense of Responsibility

• As multiple stakeholders share opinions and ideas on a project it instills a sense of shared responsibility in them.
• This will reduce the friction on the journey from the current as-is state to the future to-be state and thus increase the chances of success of the project and also its credibility.

 

How to identify stakeholders for a project?

Solo brainstorm:

You take a mock walk-through of the anticipated process/scope.

You can do this as a solo exercise for yourself in which you:

• Review the gathered initial project data that explains what the project does
• Walk-through the expected steps to take the project from the current as-is state the future to-be state

As you walk through you can identify individuals/groups:

• Who Are Beneficiaries of the project:

E.g customers, employees, communities, etc

• Who Are Directly involved with the beneficiaries of the project

E.g Managers, officials, etc

• Whose Jobs that may be affected

People whose process or routine are affected due to the change

• Who are Government officials

Think of the various government agencies that may be involved

• Who Are Influencers

People who make decisions and provide fundings E.g Higher Management Executives

• Who Have Interest in the outcome

People with a general interest in the project E.g if the project is for public use then the general public should be considered as stakeholders

Team  brainstorm:

• You can bring together the whole project team or a subset of the project team and brainstorm for additional stakeholders.
• You may or may not inform them about the already identified stakeholders as it is a project-by-project decision

Get ideas from existing stakeholders

• After you have identified the stakeholders, you can approach each of them and briefly explain to them the project.
• Then you can ask them if they could suggest other groups/individuals who they think could be affected by the project.
• Since they are directly engaged with the actual work they may help you to discover areas, people, and groups that you could have never thought of on your own. You could have missed taking requirements from them as you may have thought they may not be involved.

Assigning Responsibilities to Stakeholders 

• Not assigning responsibilities to stakeholders is a risk to the project and hence should be done at the very beginning of the project.
• Ensure that the individual stakeholder’s responsibilities are aligned (is inline) at various points and processes within the project.
• RACI Matrix can be used as a tool to assign responsibilities to stakeholders

 

RACI  Matrix:

It is a visual model that can be used to assign responsibilities to stakeholders and can be placed in the requirements document for everyone to reference.

 

Why use the RACI matrix?

It is a Critical Tool to Understand and Align the Responsibilities of Stakeholders.

• Multiple stakeholders with varying responsibilities are involved in a project.
• RACI matrix helps to identify those responsibilities early on in the project to remove confusion and set the stage for the progression of the project.

It Alleviates Power Struggle 

• The matrix helps to identify responsibility and accountability for tasks.
• Each stakeholder is aware of their role and involvement in the project and has to adhere to it.
• It reduces friction and conflicts between teams and people by clearly demarcating their roles.

It Reduces lack of ownership

• The matrix makes stakeholders voluntarily responsible for tasks.
• It leaves no room for guess-work or assumption-making as to who will perform a task.
• It reduces the passing of blame if a task or process is incorrectly done.

Sets clear expectations

• The matrix makes everyone aware of their role within a project and thus facilitates the smooth functioning of the project.
• This helps:

To avoid overshooting of the schedule or budget.

To complete the project on time

 

How does a RACI Matrix Function:

It is a Grid consisting of Actions/ Tasks on the Left and Project Roles (stakeholders) on the Top.

Project roles could be:

Business Analysts, Project Manager, Team member, users, executives, etc

Tasks could be:

Project planning, testing, requirements gathering, move to production, etc

In the Grid cells:

Against each task, a stakeholder is assigned to either be: Responsible, Accountable, Consulted or Informed.

Brief description of the RACI components:

R – Responsible:

They ensure the task gets completed.

• Who is/will be doing the task?
• Who is assigned to work on the task

e.g. Developer, tester

A – Accountable:

They validate that the task is “done” and meets the overall business objective

• Who will be disappointed if this task goes wrong?
• Who has the authority to sign-off the work?

E.g. Team Lead, Project Manager

C – Consulted:

They are not decision-makers. However, their experience and expertise is crucial to provide technically correct suggestions and recommendations. They can be either your project team members or SMEs.

• Who can provide additional info about the task?
• Who are the Subject Matter Experts?

E.g Customer

I – Informed:

• Whose work depends on the task? E.g end-users
• Who has to be kept updated about the progress? E.g Decision-making upper management executives.

e.g users of the system/project

 

The post is  based on my notes and understanding from this BA tutorial