COEPD – Center of Excellence for Professional Development Happy Learning
Stakeholder Analysis
While working on any project, there are many people in an organization or an organization as a whole gets affected by the implementation of the said project. It is important to identify the people who are influenced by the project and to what extent their influence matters. These people are the stakeholders of the project. Stakeholder analysis is done to identify and analyze these stakeholders in order to have a deep understanding of their interests, behavior and relationship to a project.
Stakeholder analysis is of great importance as it allows us the proper structuring of the project and to meet our stakeholder expectations. This helps in building trust and positive relationship with the stakeholders.
Types of stakeholders:
- Business or Project Stakeholders: People who are internal part of organization having an expertise in business and technical aspects. Ex: BA, PM, QA, testers, departmental specialist, business owners.
- External Stakeholders: People who are not a part of the organization but have direct interest in the business. Ex: Customers, suppliers, government, society, competitors, pressure groups.
Process of stakeholder analysis
- Identifying the prospect stakeholders:
Brainstorming is a technique used to identify all stakeholders who have an influence and power or have an interest in the outcome of the project.
- Prioritize stakeholders:
Once identified, an analysis is conducted depending on their importance/ authority and level of interest of a stakeholder. This is essential in order to have an understanding for the extent to which a stakeholders hold power to influence the project and his expectations for the same.
- Managing Stakeholders:
After analyzing the stakeholder profile, an understanding is developed for the means of communication and frequency of communication adopted for the stakeholders. The key stakeholder needs to be managed with higher communication and greater attention.
