Engaging Stakeholders and Managing Their Expectations

In the past decade, the word stakeholder has become more commonly recognised in the lingua franca of business and project management.

Originally derived from the practice of marking our plots of land with wooden stakes, the stakeholder was recognised as being the beneficial owner of the indicated area and can be traced to the 1800s.  The stakeholder had an interest in the plot of land they owned.

In the latter half of the 20^th century, the term gained a wider use, denoting anyone who could be affected by or could affect an organization.  This results in a broad catchment of people, groups of people and organizations, all of whom may have different interests and these must be managed carefully.

Figure 1 shows the high level of a framework designed to engage and manage stakeholders.

The framework has six sets of activities that must be performed to engage and manage stakeholder expectations. Although shown sequentially, the reality is that continuous attention will be required in all six areas and much of this will be done in parallel, once the initial stakeholder registry is created.

Activity One – Recognize Stakeholders

This activity involves creating a stakeholder registry, which is a database that contains information about each stakeholder, including their name, role, organization and other information deemed relevant.

Activity Two – Profile Stakeholders

The information collected in the stakeholder registry is reviewed to establish the interests of the stakeholder(s), using a collection of different analytic tools.  This provides a reasonably complete and balanced view of the stakeholders’ aspirations and concerns.

Activity Three – Design Stakeholder Strategy

Once the stakeholder profiles are established, the next step is to design a stakeholder engagement and management strategy.  Put simply, a strategy is a set of decisions on how to get from one place to another and in this context, how to manage the expectations of the stakeholder communities.

Whilst there are many potential tools and techniques to use, the work will often include further consideration of groups of stakeholders (often known as audiences or constituencies), in order to determine how to engage with them and manage their expectations.

Activity Four – Plan Stakeholder Management

Once suitable strategies have been identified and decisions made, it is necessary to convert these into a actionable plan.  In planning stakeholder communications, it would be wise to bear in mind the words of US President Dwight D. Eisenhower, who was reported by the New York Times as saying “plans are worthless but planning is everything”, meaning that the art of planning is dynamic, in responsible to an environment that changes rapidly.  Consequently, published plans may need frequent revisions, in order to keep them relevant and useful.

Activity Five – Manage Stakeholders

The activity of managing stakeholders is largely about soft skills, including perception and empathy for their concerns. Some behavioral observation will be part of the mix and the focus will be on building and maintaining trust as long as necessary (e.g. until the end of a project).

Activity Six – Measure Effectiveness

The final set of activities is to ‘close the loop’ with the stakeholder audiences, by seeking feedback on the effectiveness of the communications and supporting actions.

By discovering what the stakeholders think of your efforts to understand their perspectives and accommodate those, you are able to learn lessons, amend your approach where appropriate and increase the effectiveness of your endeavors.

Engaging with stakeholders, understanding their aspirations and concerns and addressing these is a positive action in achieving successful outcomes.

By attending GLOMACS’ Stakeholder Management training course, all participant will develop several important work-related skills and competencies, these includes:

• Detailed understanding of the practice of stakeholder management
• Practical skills in stakeholder engagement
• Effective communication skills
• The ability to apply win-win negotiation skills
• Increased knowledge of the psychology of influence
• A set of transferable skills in dealing with Stakeholders