Chapter 2

Involving the Right People

IN THIS CHAPTER

Compiling your project’s diverse stakeholders into a stakeholder register

Identifying your drivers, supporters, and observers

Using an effective format for your stakeholder register

Determining who has authority in your project

Prioritizing your stakeholders by their levels of power and interest

Often a project is like an iceberg: Nine-tenths of it lurks below the surface. You receive an assignment and think you know what it entails and who needs to be involved. Then, as the project unfolds, new people emerge who may affect your goals, your approach, and your chances for project success.

You risk compromising your project in the following ways when you don’t involve key people or groups in your project in a timely manner:

• You may miss important information that can affect the project’s performance and ultimate success.
• You may insult someone. And you can be sure that when someone feels you have slighted or insulted them, they’ll take steps to make sure you don’t do it again!

As soon as you begin to think about a new project, start to identify people who may play a role directly and indirectly. This chapter shows you how to identify these candidates; how to decide whether, when, and how to involve them; and how to determine who has the authority, power, and interest to make critical decisions.

Understanding Your Project’s Stakeholders

A project stakeholder is any person or group that supports, is affected by, or is interested in your project. Your project’s stakeholders can be inside or outside your organization, and knowing who they are helps you

• Plan whether, when, and how to involve them.
• Determine whether the scope of the project is bigger or smaller than you originally anticipated.

You may hear other terms used in the business world to describe project stakeholders, but these terms address only some of the people from your complete project stakeholder register. Here are some examples:

• A distribution list identifies people who receive project communications. These lists are often out-of-date for a couple of reasons. Some people remain on the list simply because no one removes them; other people are on the list because no one wants to run the risk of insulting them by removing them. In either case, having their names on this list doesn’t ensure that these people actually support, are affected by, or are interested in your project.
• Team members are people whom the project manager directs. All team members are stakeholders, but the stakeholder register includes more than just team members.

Developing a Stakeholder Register

As you identify the different stakeholders for your project, record them in a stakeholder register. Check out the following sections for information on how to develop this register.

Starting your stakeholder register

A project stakeholder register is a living document, which should be updated regularly throughout the project. You need to start developing your register as soon as you begin thinking about your project.

Begin your project’s stakeholder register by considering the initial version of the register that’s generated upon completion of the development of the project charter. (This charter authorizes the existence of a project and provides the project manager with the authority to use organizational resources to support the performance of project activities.)

Next, write down any other names that occur to you. When you discuss your project with other people, ask them who they think may be affected by or interested in your project. Then select a small group of the stakeholders you identify and conduct a formal brainstorming session. Continue to add and subtract names to your stakeholder register until you can’t think of anyone else.

The following sections explain how to refine your stakeholder register by dividing it into specific categories and recognizing important potential stakeholders. You also find a sample to show you how to put your own register together.

Using specific categories

To increase your chances of identifying all appropriate people, develop your stakeholder register in categories. You’re less likely to overlook people when you consider them department by department or group by group instead of trying to identify everyone from the organization individually at the same time.

Start your stakeholder register by developing a hierarchical grouping of categories that covers the universe of people who may be affected by, be needed to support, or be interested in your project. You can start with the following groups:

• Internal: People and groups inside your organization
  • Upper management: Executive-level management responsible for the general oversight of all organization operations
  • Requesters: The person who came up with the idea for your project and all the people through whom the request passed before you received it
  • Project manager: The person with overall responsibility for successfully completing the project
  • End users: People who will use the goods or services the project will produce
  • Team members: People assigned to the project whose work the project manager directs
  • Groups normally involved: Groups typically involved in most projects in the organization, such as the human resources, finance, contracts, and legal departments
  • Groups needed just for this project: Groups or people with special knowledge related to this project
• External: People and groups outside your organization
  • Clients or customers: People or groups that buy or use your organization’s products or services
  • Collaborators: Groups or organizations with whom you may pursue joint ventures related to your project
  • Vendors, suppliers, and contractors: Organizations that provide personnel, raw materials, equipment, or other resources required to perform your project’s work
  • Regulators: Government agencies that establish regulations and guidelines that govern some aspect of your project work
  • Professional societies: Groups of professionals that may influence or be interested in your project
  • The public: The local, national, and international community of people who may be affected by or interested in your project

Continue to subdivide these categories further until you arrive at job titles (or position descriptions) and the names of the people who occupy them. (The process of systematically separating a whole into its component parts is called decomposition, which you can read about in Chapter 3 of Book 1.)

Considering stakeholders that are often overlooked

As you develop your stakeholder register, be sure not to overlook the following potential stakeholders:

• Support groups: These people don’t tell you what you should do (or help you deal with the trauma of project management); instead, they help you accomplish the project’s goals. If support groups know about your project early, they can fit you into their work schedules more readily. They can also tell you information about their capabilities and processes that may influence what your project can accomplish and by when. Such groups include
  • Facilities
  • Finance
  • Human resources
  • Information technology (IT)
  • Legal services
  • Procurement or contracting
  • Project management office
  • Quality
  • Security
  • Help desks
  • Call centers

• End users of your project’s products: End users are people or groups who will use the goods and services your project produces. Involving end users at the beginning of and throughout your project helps ensure that the goods and services produced are as easy as possible to implement and use, and are most responsive to their true needs. It also confirms that you appreciate the fact that the people who will use a product may have important insights into what it should look like and do, which increases the chances that they’ll work to implement the products successfully.

  In some cases, you may omit end users on your stakeholder register because you don’t know who they are. In other situations, you may think you have taken them into account through liaisons — people who represent the interests of the end users.

• People who will maintain or support the final product: People who will service your project’s final products affect the continuing success of these products. Involving these people throughout your project gives them a chance to make your project’s products easier to maintain and support. It also allows them to become familiar with the products and effectively build their maintenance into existing procedures.

Examining the beginning of a sample stakeholder register

Suppose you’re asked to coordinate your organization’s annual blood drive. Figure 2-1 illustrates some of the groups and people you may include in your project’s stakeholder register as you prepare for your new project.

© John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

FIGURE 2-1: The beginning of a sample stakeholder register for an annual blood drive.

Ensuring your stakeholder register is complete and up to date

Many different groups of people may influence the success of or have an interest in your project. Knowing who these people are allows you to plan to involve them at the appropriate times during your project. Therefore, identifying all project stakeholders as soon as possible and reflecting any changes in those stakeholders as soon as you find out about them are important steps to take as you manage your project.

To ensure your stakeholder register is complete and up to date, consider the following guidelines:

• Eventually identify each stakeholder by position description and name. You may, for example, initially identify people from sales and marketing as stakeholders. Eventually, however, you want to specify the particular people from that group — such as brand manager for XYZ product, Sharon Wilson — and their contact information.
• Speak with a wide range of people. Check with people in different organizational units, from different disciplines, and with different tenures in the organization. Ask every person whether she can think of anyone else you should speak with. The more people you speak with, the less likely you are to overlook someone important.
• Allow sufficient time to develop your stakeholder register. Start to develop your register as soon as you become project manager. The longer you think about your project, the more potential stakeholders you can identify. Throughout the project, continue to check with people to identify additional stakeholders.
• Include stakeholders who may play a role at any time during your project. Your only job at this stage is to identify names so you don’t forget them. At a later point, you can decide whether, when, and how to involve these people (see the later section “Determining Whether Stakeholders Are Drivers, Supporters, or Observers”).
• Include team members’ functional managers. Include the people to whom the project manager and team members directly report. Even though functional managers usually don’t perform project tasks themselves, they can help ensure that the project manager and team members devote the time they originally promised to the project and that they have the resources necessary to perform their project assignments.
• Include a person’s name on the stakeholder register for every role she plays. Suppose your boss plans to provide expert technical advice to your project team. Include your boss’s name twice — once as your direct supervisor and once as the technical expert. If your boss is promoted but continues to serve as a technical advisor to your project, the separate listings remind you that a new person now occupies your direct supervisor’s slot.
• Continue to add and remove names from your stakeholder register throughout your project. Your stakeholder register evolves as you understand more about your project and as your project changes. Plan to review your register at regular intervals throughout the project to identify names that should be added or deleted. Encourage people involved in your project to continually identify new stakeholders as they think of them.
• When in doubt, write down a person’s name. Your goal is to avoid overlooking someone who may play an important part in your project. Identifying a potential audience member doesn’t mean you have to involve that person; it simply means you have to consider her. Eliminating the name of someone who won’t be involved is a lot easier than trying to add the name of someone who should be.

Using a stakeholder register template

A stakeholder register template is a predesigned stakeholder register that contains typical categories and stakeholders for a particular type of project. You may develop and maintain your own stakeholder register templates for tasks you perform, functional groups may develop and maintain stakeholder register templates for tasks they typically conduct, or your organization’s project management office may develop and maintain templates for the entire organization.

Regardless of who maintains the template, it reflects people’s cumulative experiences. As the organization continues to perform projects of this type, stakeholders that were overlooked in earlier efforts may be added and stakeholders that proved unnecessary removed. Using these templates can save you time and improve your accuracy.

Suppose you prepare the budget for your department each quarter. After doing a number of these budgets, you know most of the people who give you the necessary information, who draft and print the document, and who have to approve the final budget. Each time you finish another budget, you revise your stakeholder register template to include new information from that project. The next time you prepare your quarterly budget, you begin your stakeholder register with your template. You then add and subtract names as appropriate for that particular budget preparation.

When using stakeholder register templates, keep the following guidelines in mind:

• Develop templates for frequently performed tasks and for entire projects. Stakeholder register templates for kicking off the annual blood drive or submitting a newly developed drug to the Food and Drug Administration are valuable. But so are templates for individual tasks that are part of these projects, such as awarding a competitive contract or printing a document. Many times, projects that appear totally new actually contain some tasks that you’ve done before. You can still reap the benefits of your prior experience by including the stakeholder register templates for these tasks in your overall project stakeholder register.
• Focus on position descriptions rather than the names of prior stakeholders. Identify a stakeholder as accounts payable manager rather than Bill Miller. People come and go, but functions endure. For each specific project, you can fill in the appropriate names.
• Develop and modify your stakeholder register template from previous projects that actually worked, not from initial plans that looked good but lacked key information. Often you develop a detailed stakeholder register at the start of your project but don’t revise the register during the project or add stakeholders whom you overlooked in your initial planning. If you update your template with information from an initial list only, your template can’t reflect the discoveries you made throughout the earlier project.
• Encourage your team members to brainstorm possible stakeholders before you show them an existing stakeholder register template. Encouraging people to identify stakeholders without guidance or restrictions increases the chances that they’ll think of stakeholders who were overlooked on previous projects.
• Use templates as starting points, not ending points. Make clear to your team that the template isn’t the final register. Every project differs in some ways from similar ones. If you don’t critically examine the template, you may miss people who weren’t involved in previous projects but whom you need to consider for this one.
• Reflect your different project experiences in your stakeholder register templates. The post-project evaluation is an excellent time to review, critique, and modify your stakeholder register for a particular project (see Chapter 4 in Book 2 for details on the post-project evaluation).

Templates can save time and improve accuracy. However, starting with a template that’s too polished can suggest you’ve already made up your mind about the contents of your final list, which may discourage people from freely sharing their thoughts about other potential stakeholders. In addition, their lack of involvement in the development of the project’s audience list may lead to their lack of commitment to the project’s success.

Determining Whether Stakeholders Are Drivers, Supporters, or Observers

After you identify every one of your stakeholders, you need to determine which group those people fall into: drivers, supporters, or observers. Then you can decide whether to involve them and, if so, how and when. The following sections help you identify when you need to involve drivers, supporters, and observers, and how to keep them involved.

Distinguishing the different groups

Separating stakeholders into the following three categories helps you decide what information to seek from and share with each group, as well as to clarify the project decisions in which to involve them.

• Drivers: People who have some say in defining the results of your project. You’re performing your project for these people.
• Supporters: The people who help you perform your project. Supporters include individuals who authorize or provide the resources for your project as well as those who actually work on it.
• Observers: People who are neither drivers nor supporters but who are interested in the activities and results of your project. Observers have no say in your project, and they’re not actively involved in it. However, your project may affect them at some point in the future.

Suppose an IT group has the job of modifying the layout and content of a monthly sales report for all sales representatives. The vice president of sales requested the project, and the chief information officer (CIO — the boss of the head of the IT group) approved it. As the project manager for this project, consider categorizing your project’s stakeholders as follows:

• Drivers: The vice president of sales is a driver because he has specific reasons for revising the report. The CIO is a potential driver because she may hope to develop certain new capabilities for her group through this project. Individual sales representatives are all drivers for this project because they’ll use the redesigned report to support their work.
• Supporters: The systems analyst who designs the revised report, the training specialist who trains the users, and the vice president of finance who authorizes the funds for changing the manual are all supporters.
• Observers: The head of the customer service department is a potential observer because he hopes your project will lead to an improved problem-tracking system this year.

Beware of supporters who try to act like drivers. In the preceding example, the analyst who finalizes the content and format of the report may try to include certain items that she thinks are helpful. However, only the real drivers should determine the specific data that go into the report. The analyst just determines whether including the desired data is possible and what doing so will cost.

Keep in mind that the same person can be both a driver and a supporter. For example, the vice president of sales is a driver for the project to develop a revised monthly sales report, but he’s also a supporter if he has to transfer funds from the sales department budget to pay for developing the report.

A project champion (also known as a project sponsor) is a person in a high position in the organization who strongly supports your project; advocates for your project in disputes, planning meetings, and review sessions; and takes whatever actions are necessary to help ensure the successful completion of your project. As soon as you start planning, find out whether your project has a champion. If it doesn’t, try to recruit one. An effective project champion has the following characteristics:

• Sufficient power and authority to resolve conflicts over resources, schedules, and technical issues
• A keen interest in the results of your project
• A willingness to have his or her name cited as a strong supporter of your project

Deciding when to involve your stakeholders

Projects pass through the following four phases as they progress from an idea to completion (see Chapter 1 in Book 1 for detailed explanations of these phases):

• Starting the project
• Organizing and preparing
• Carrying out the work
• Closing the project

Plan to involve drivers, supporters, and observers in each phase of your project’s life cycle. The following sections tell you how you can do so. See the later section “Assessing Your Stakeholders’ Power and Interest” for information on what to consider when deciding how to involve different stakeholders.

Drivers

Keeping drivers involved in your project from start to finish is critical because they define what your project should produce, and they evaluate your project’s success when it’s finished. Their desires and your assessment of feasibility can influence whether you should pursue the project. Check out Table 2-1 to see how to involve drivers during the four phases of your project.

TABLE 2-1 Involving Drivers in the Different Project Phases

Phase	Involvement Level	How to Involve
Starting the project	Heavy	Identify and speak with as many drivers as possible. If you uncover additional drivers later, explore with them the issues that led to the project; ask them to identify and assess any special expectations they may have.
Organizing and preparing	Moderate to heavy	Consult with drivers to ensure your project plan addresses their needs and expectations. Have them formally approve the plan before you start the actual project work.
Carrying out the work	Moderate	As the project gets underway, introduce the drivers to the project team. Have the drivers talk about their needs and interests to reinforce the importance of the project and help team members form a more accurate picture of project goals. In addition, have the team members talk to the drivers to increase the drivers’ confidence that the team members can successfully complete the project. While performing the project work, keep drivers apprised of project accomplishments and progress to sustain their ongoing interest and enthusiasm. Continually confirm that the results are meeting their needs.
Closing the project	Heavy	Have drivers assess the project’s results and determine whether their needs and expectations were met. Identify their recommendations for improving performance on similar projects in the future.

Supporters

Involving supporters from start to finish is important since they perform and support the project work; supporters need to know about changing requirements so they can promptly identify and address problems. Keeping them actively involved also sustains their ongoing motivation and commitment to the project. Check out Table 2-2 to see how to involve supporters during your project’s four phases.

Observers

After you choose the observers with whom you want to actively share project information, involve them minimally throughout the project because they neither tell you what should be done nor help you do it. Table 2-3 shows how you may keep observers involved.

TABLE 2-2 Involving Supporters in the Different Project Phases

Phase	Involvement Level	How to Involve
Starting the project	Moderate	Wherever possible, have key supporters assess the feasibility of meeting driver expectations. If you identify key supporters later in the project, have them confirm the feasibility of previously set expectations.
Organizing and preparing	Heavy	Supporters are the major contributors to the project plan. Because they facilitate or do all the work, have them determine necessary technical approaches, schedules, and resources. Also have them formally commit to all aspects of the plan.
Carrying out the work	Heavy	Familiarize all supporters with the planned work. Clarify how the supporters will work together to achieve the results. Have supporters decide how they’ll communicate, resolve conflicts, and make decisions during the course of the project. Throughout the project, keep supporters informed of project progress, encourage them to identify performance problems they encounter or anticipate, and work with them to develop and implement solutions to these problems.
Closing the project	Heavy	Have supporters conclude their different tasks. Inform them of project accomplishments and recognize their roles in project achievements. Elicit their suggestions for handling similar projects more effectively in the future.

TABLE 2-3 Involving Observers in the Different Project Phases

Phase	Involvement Level	How to Involve
Starting the project	Minimal	Inform observers of your project’s existence and its main goals.
Organizing and preparing	Minimal	Inform observers about the project’s planned outcomes and time frames.
Carrying out the work	Minimal	Tell observers that the project has started and confirm the dates for planned milestones. Inform observers of key project achievements.
Closing the project	Minimal	When the project is done, inform observers about the project’s products and results.

Because observers don’t directly influence or affect your project, be sure to carefully manage the time and effort you spend sharing information with them. When deciding whom to involve and how to share information with them, consider the following:

• Their level of interest in your project
• The likelihood that your project will affect them at some point in the future
• The need to maintain a good working relationship with them

Using different methods to involve your stakeholders

Keeping drivers, supporters, and observers informed as you progress in your project is critical to the project’s success. Choosing the right method for involving each stakeholder group can stimulate that group’s continued interest and encourage its members to actively support your work. Consider the following approaches for keeping your project stakeholders involved throughout your project:

• One-on-one meetings: One-on-one meetings (formal or informal discussions with one or two other people about project issues) are particularly useful for interactively exploring and clarifying special issues of interest with a small number of people.
• Group meetings: These meetings are planned sessions for some or all team members or stakeholders. Smaller meetings are useful to brainstorm project issues, reinforce team member roles, and develop mutual trust and respect among team members. Larger meetings are useful to present information of general interest.
• Informal written correspondence: Informal written correspondence (notes, memos, letters, and emails) helps you document informal discussions and share important project information.
• More formal information-sharing vehicles: Information resources such as project newsletters or sites on the organization’s intranet may be useful for sharing nonconfidential and noncontroversial information with larger groups of stakeholders.
• Written approvals: Written approvals (such as a technical approach to project work or formal agreements about a product, schedule, or resource commitment) serve as records of project decisions and achievements.

Making the most of your stakeholders’ involvement

To maximize your stakeholders’ involvement and contributions, follow these guidelines throughout your project:

• Involve stakeholders early in the project planning if they have a role later on. Give your stakeholders the option to participate in planning even if they don’t perform until later in the project. Sometimes they can share information that’ll make their tasks easier. At the least, they can reserve time to provide their services when you need them.

• If you’re concerned with the legality of involving a specific stakeholder, check with your legal department or contracts office. Suppose you’re planning to award a competitive contract to buy certain equipment. You want to know whether prospective bidders typically have this equipment on hand and how long it’ll take to receive it after you award the contract. However, you’re concerned that speaking to potential contractors in the planning phase may tip them off about the procurement and lead to charges of favoritism by unsuccessful bidders who didn’t know about the procurement in advance.

  Instead of ignoring this important stakeholder, check with your contracts office or legal department to determine how you can get the information you want and still maintain the integrity of the bidding process.

• Develop a communication plan with all key stakeholders to meet their information needs and interests as well as yours. Determine the information they want and the information you believe they need. Also decide when to provide that information and in what format. Finally, clarify what you want from them and how and when they can provide it.
• Always be sure you understand each stakeholder’s “what’s in it for me” (WIIFM). Clarify why seeing your project succeed is in each stakeholder’s interest. Throughout your project, keep reminding your stakeholders of the benefits they’ll realize when your project’s complete and the progress your project has made toward achieving those benefits.

Displaying Your Stakeholder Register

You’re concerned with two issues when developing the format and content of your stakeholder register:

• Increasing your confidence that you identified all appropriate stakeholders
• Helping others suggest people not on the register who should be included and people on the register who possibly should not

Figure 2-2 shows a sample stakeholder register format you may use for your stakeholder register. The format includes three major categories of information:

• The hierarchical structure of the categories in which stakeholders are located
• The specific identifiers of each stakeholder (job title and name)
• The stakeholder’s role with regard to the project (driver, supporter, or observer; see the earlier section “Determining Whether Stakeholders Are Drivers, Supporters, or Observers”)

Note: You can add columns on the right for optional information, such as email, phone, and so on.

© John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

FIGURE 2-2: A sample stakeholder register format.

Confirming Your Stakeholders’ Authority

In project terms, authority refers to the overall right to make project decisions that others must follow, including the right to apply project resources, expend funds, or give approvals. Having opinions about how an aspect should be addressed is different from having the authority to decide how it will be addressed. Mistaking a person’s level of authority can lead to frustration as well as wasted time and money.

Confirm that the people you’ve identified as stakeholders have the authority to make the decisions they need to make to perform their tasks. If they don’t have that authority, find out who does and how to bring those people into the process.

At the beginning of the carrying-out-the-work phase in your projects, take the following steps to define each stakeholder’s authority:

1. Clarify each stakeholder’s tasks and decisions.

   Define with each person his tasks and his role in those tasks. For example, will he just work on the task, or will he also approve the schedules, resource expenditures, and work approaches?

2. Ask each stakeholder what his authority is regarding each decision and task.

   Ask about individual tasks rather than all issues in a particular area. For example, a person can be more confident about his authority to approve supply purchases up to $5,000 than about his authority to approve all equipment purchases, no matter the type or amount.

   Clarify decisions that the stakeholder can make himself. For decisions needing someone else’s approval, find out whose approval he needs. (Ask — never assume!)

3. Ask each stakeholder how he knows what authority he has.

   Does a written policy, procedure, or guideline confirm the authority? Did the person’s boss tell him in conversation? Is the person just assuming? If the person has no specific confirming information, encourage him to get it.

4. Check out each stakeholder’s history of exercising authority.

   Have you or other people worked with this person in the past? Has he been overruled on decisions that he said he was authorized to make? If so, ask him why he believes he won’t be similarly overruled this time.

5. Verify whether anything has recently changed regarding each stakeholder’s authority.

   Do you have any reason to believe that this person’s authority has changed? Is he new to his current group or position? Has he recently started working for a new boss? If any of these situations exists, encourage the person to find specific documentation to confirm his authority for his benefit as well as yours.

Reconfirm the information in these steps when a particular stakeholder’s decision-making assignments change. Suppose, for example, that you initially expect all individual purchases on your project to be at or under $2,500. Bill, the team representative from the finance group, assures you that he has the authority to approve such purchases for your project without checking with his boss. Midway through the project, you find that you have to purchase a piece of equipment for $5,000. Be sure to verify with Bill that he can personally authorize this larger expenditure. If he can’t, find out whose approval you need and plan how to get it.

Assessing Your Stakeholders’ Power and Interest

A stakeholder’s potential impact on a project depends on the power she can exercise and the interest she has in exercising that power. Assessing the relative levels of each helps you decide with whom you should spend your time and effort to realize the greatest benefits.

Power is a person’s ability to influence the actions of others. This ability can derive either from the direct authority the person has to require people to respond to her requests (ascribed power; refer to the preceding section for more about authority) or the ability she has to induce others to do what she asks because of the respect they have for her professionally or personally (achieved power). In either case, the more power a person has, the better able she is to marshal people and resources to support your project. Typically, drivers and supporters have higher levels of power over your project than observers do.

On the other hand, a person’s interest in something is how much she cares or is curious about it or how much she pays attention to it. The more interested a person is in your project, the more likely she is to want to use her power to help the project succeed.

You can define a stakeholder’s relative levels of power and interest related to your project as being either high or low. You then have four possible combinations for each stakeholder’s relative levels of power and interest. The particular values of a stakeholder’s power and interest ratings suggest the chances that the stakeholder may have a significant impact on your project and, therefore, the relative importance of keeping that stakeholder interested and involved in your project.

Most often, you base the assessments of a stakeholder’s power over and interest in your project on the aggregated individual, subjective opinions of several parties: you, your team members, your project’s other stakeholders, people who have worked with the stakeholder on other projects, subject matter experts, and/or the stakeholder himself or herself. If you assign a value of 1 to each individual rating of high and 0 to each individual rating of low, you’d rate a stakeholder’s power or interest as high if the average of the individual assessments were 0.5 or greater and low if the average were below 0.5.

Figure 2-3 depicts a Power-Interest Grid, which represents these four possible power-interest combinations as distinct quadrants on a two-dimensional graph. As the project manager, you should spend a minimal amount of time and effort with stakeholders who have low levels of both power and interest (Quadrant I). Spend increasingly greater amounts of time and effort with stakeholders who have a low level of power and a high level of interest (Quadrant II) and a low level of interest and a high level of power (Quadrant III), respectively. You should spend the most time and effort keeping stakeholders with high degrees of both power and interest (Quadrant IV) informed and involved.

© John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

FIGURE 2-3: Involving stakeholders with different levels of power and interest in your project.