Project Stakeholder

Stakeholder: A stake holder can be either an individual or an organisation with a vested interest in the project. They are also actively involved in the project. The stakeholders are critical because the project manager have an obligation to meet their expectations. There could be number of stakeholders within the project and project manager should manage them carefully because not doing so can cause the downfall of the project.

Imagine a group of stakeholders, all with their own opinions and personal interests regarding the project requirements. Now it is responsibility of project manager to getting these group of people to agree on a set of requirements. That's not very easy task. The requirements must be identified properly and the disagreements over the requirements are to be resolved. Let's think that you have missed a requirement held by a key stakeholder for some reason and it is now been determined that the project must include this new requirement. That responsibility does fall on the project manager's shoulders to make sure that the stakeholders fully understand the decisions to be made and they are kept well informed and the overall their needs to the projects are met. This is why the stakeholders must be identified early on in the project in order to ensure that the project requirements are fully specified.

A project is successful when it meets project objectives and when it meets or exceeds the expectations of the stakeholders.

The stakeholders may include:

• The Project Manager
• The Sponsor (Person/Group funding the project)
• The Customer(s)
• Department Heads or Managers
• Project Team
• Executive Team
• Project Management Office (PMO)
• Others (It's not the complete list. Stakeholders can expand to include vendors, government agencies and others who can provide influence within the project)

One of the challenges of managing stakeholder expectations is dealing with conflicting interests. As the project stakeholders are critical to success of the project it is very important to identify the stakeholders as early as possible within a project in order to make sure everyone is in agreement with project requirements