Planning for Communication and Stakeholder Management

Abstract

Without project stakeholders, there is literally no project. Your project is doomed to fail without successful project stakeholder management. Before asking what stakeholder management is, let’s recall who the project stakeholders are. As discussed in Chapter 2, the amount of enthusiasm, anxieties, fears, and so forth varies with different stakeholders. Accordingly, they will have differing needs and expectations. One of the key project management focuses on which project success depends is achieving stakeholder satisfaction by meeting their needs and expectations while remaining aligned with project objectives. A key to keeping stakeholders’ expectations aligned with project objectives and meeting those expectations is to keep stakeholders engaged in the project. Project managers have little, if any, control over the stakeholders. So, stakeholder management is all about stakeholder engagement.