Stakeholder management is a critical part of successful project management. TPMs are responsible for managing Engineering Teams, Product Management, Business groups etc. Managing stakeholders requires continued efforts all along the project.

Stakeholder management involves dealing with people and managing their expectations. Every project and every stakeholder is different and requires proper management.

Below are some guidelines for managing stakeholders:

  1. Make a List of Stakeholders
  2. Identify Key Stakeholders
  3. Spot Trouble/Noise Makers
  4. Communication Plan for Each Stakeholder
    1. Mode of Communication
    2. Frequency of Communication
    3. 1:1 or group meetings
    4. Artifacts
  5. Meetings with each stakeholder group regularly
  6. Building on the Relationship with Stakeholders

  1. List all Stakeholders: This is the first and most crucial part of stakeholder management. Many times, we overlook all the stakeholders. A stakeholder doesn’t necessarily be directly involved in a project but may be impacted or interested in it. The list of stakeholders should be comprehensive and reviewed with multiple people like TPM Manager, Engineering Manager and Product Manager.
  2. Identify Key Stakeholders: Identification of Key stakeholders is the next step in this process. These stakeholders are directly involved/impacted by the project. This includes management and leadership from business, product management, engineering, UX, Content Writing etc.

We can also classify stakeholders into different categories:

  1. Highly Impacted
  2. Slightly Impacted
  3. High interest
  4. Low Interest
  5. High influence
  6. Low influence

  1. Identify Trouble/Noise Makers: These folks are known to be noise makers and high maintenance. They may have been at the company for a while and may have a sense of entitlement. They need to be managed or monitored closely. They do not like to be surprised or ignored.

  1. Communication Plan: Each stakeholder needs to be managed according to its needs. The style of communication, mode and frequency of communication may differ. This includes:

    1. Email communication
    2. Project Status Reports
    3. Sprint Progress Reports
    4. Weekly/Monthly Status Reports
    5. Project bug counts
    6. Budgeting reports etc.

Some stakeholders are OK receiving offline status reports while for others regular status meetings or 1:1 sync may be needed.

  1. Meeting Stakeholder Groups: One of the techniques of stakeholder management is to separate them in groups and manage each group per its requirements e.g. Business Stakeholders and Technology Stakeholders may need very different views of the project status. Security and Privacy Stakeholders are another example that should be managed separately.

  1. Building on Stakeholder Relationship: Stakeholder management should be seen from the lens of long-term networking and relationship building. People move around in different roles within the organization. You may have ambitions to move to a different department. As part of the stakeholder management process, you will get visibility into how things operate in different divisions of the company and opportunities available there. Relationships that you build will come in handy in upcoming projects as well as applying for any roles there.

Managing stakeholder expectations is the most critical part of TPM job. It is a pre-requisite for smooth project execution and delivery. From TPM perspective, even if you deliver a project successfully, but do not manage stakeholders properly, then you may not get the due credit.

Share your experiences in managing stakeholders from your projects. Let us know what worked for you and what did not.