13 Introducing Project Stakeholder Management

CERTIFICATION OBJECTIVES

13.01    Identifying the Project Stakeholders

13.02    Planning for Stakeholder Management

13.03    Promoting Stakeholder Engagement

13.04    Controlling Stakeholder Engagement

          Two-Minute Drill

Q&A   Self Test

Some project managers believe that if it weren’t for the project stakeholders, their projects would go smoothly. But that’s like saying swimming would be easy if it weren’t for all the water. Project management—your job—wouldn’t exist if there were no stakeholders. And although stakeholder management can be a challenge, which is a nice way of saying a pain in the neck, the truth is that you need stakeholders in order to have a project. Stakeholders are anyone, including you, who have a vested interest in the project’s outcome.

Stakeholders are usually the key individuals on the project: the project customer, the project manager, the program manager, the project team, vendors, and decision-makers for the project. These key stakeholders can influence the project and shift the project in a certain direction, and they have political power to help overcome obstacles that may otherwise stall the project’s advancement. Stakeholders can also object to project decisions, challenge other key stakeholders, argue about the project work, and stall the project’s advancement.

Other stakeholders you’ll also have to manage don’t usually have as much power to exert over the project as the key stakeholders do. These are people and groups that include end users, the media, customers, and your target audience for the project deliverables. Sure, sometimes these groups and people can really dislike your project and cause havoc, but most of the time these stakeholders are more passive and simply accept the existence of your project. You’ll have positive stakeholders, negative stakeholders, and neutral stakeholders in most of your projects.

Positive stakeholders, as you might guess, are the cheerleaders. Negative stakeholders are opposed to your project. Neutral stakeholders don’t care if your project succeeds or not, but they’re still involved with the project work. A neutral stakeholder could be an employee in your company’s procurement department who is involved with your project, but doesn’t really care about your project’s success or failure.

Stakeholder management is a project management knowledge area that focuses on four activities: identifying the project stakeholder, planning on how to manage the stakeholders, managing the stakeholders, and controlling the stakeholder engagement. It’s a new knowledge area in the PMBOK fifth edition and it shows the importance of stakeholder management in any project. For your PMP examination you’ll need to answer questions on how you’ll complete the four stakeholder management processes. The ultimate goal of stakeholder management is to keep stakeholders involved, interested, and supportive of the agreed-upon project scope.

CERTIFICATION OBJECTIVE 13.01

Identifying the Project Stakeholders

All of the project’s stakeholders should be identified before the project planning gets too far underway. One of the first project management processes a project manager should do, stakeholder identification ensures that all of the stakeholders are identified and represented, and their needs, expectations, and concerns are addressed. Stakeholder identification helps the project manager communicate with the appropriate people throughout the project.

Before the project manager can begin project management communications, she needs someone to communicate with. This is where project stakeholders come into play. Stakeholders, as you know, are the people and organizations that are affected by the project. It’s essential for planning and for communications to identify the project stakeholders as early as possible in the project. Things can get ugly pretty quickly when the project manager realizes that she may have overlooked a group of stakeholders that needs to contribute to the project.

Stakeholder identification helps the project manager and the project team plan for the project’s activities, resources, and deliverables. The project manager and the project team may lead the stakeholder identification process, or a business analyst may help identify the stakeholders. In either case, it’s ideal to group stakeholders by their overall influence over project decisions, their involvement in the project work, and their interest in the project outcome. This categorization can help streamline communication.

Contracts are the most formal of all communications, as they are legally binding agreements between two or more parties. If the project is a result of a contract, everyone mentioned in the contract is considered a key stakeholder to the project. The organization’s procurement management processes, part of enterprise environmental factors, may affect how stakeholder identification and management happen when contracts are involved.

Preparing for Stakeholder Identification

Imagine that you’ve just landed a new project for a client you’ve never worked with. You’d be challenged to identify all of the project stakeholders in the project—after all, you might have a general idea of who should be involved in the project, but you don’t know who’s who at this new client. You’ll need some documents and some help to prepare stakeholder identification. This is the approach you should take in all your projects. Be thorough and pretend you don’t know who should be involved in the project. You don’t want an assumption to cause an oversight in stakeholder identification.

To prepare for the stakeholder identification process, you’ll need four inputs:

  Project charter   The charter identifies the people and groups that the project is for. It’s a great place to start collecting names and requirements of people the project affects.

  Procurement documents   If you’re completing the project for another entity, the project’s contracts will help you identify some of the stakeholders you’ll need to manage. If your project procures goods and services, the vendors you’ll buy from are also stakeholders you’ll need to manage.

  Enterprise environmental factors   The culture of an organization, regulations that affect the project, and organizational trends and practices are all enterprise environmental factors that can affect stakeholder identification.

  Organizational process assets   If you’re completing a current project that’s similar to a past project, you can use historical information to help you assess stakeholders, groups, and vendors. You can also use the documents and plans from past projects to help manage the stakeholders in the current project.

One of the best approaches to stakeholder identification is to meet with the project stakeholders you do know and ask who else should be involved in the project. These meetings, sometimes called profile analysis meetings, help the project manager learn about the project stakeholders and ensure that all of the appropriate stakeholders are involved, are accounted for, and are contributing to the project’s success. A profile analysis meeting examines each of the roles in the project and documents each role’s interests, concerns, influence, knowledge about the project, and attitude toward the project.

Performing Stakeholder Analysis

Stakeholder analysis is a process that considers and ranks project stakeholders based on their influence, interests, and expectations of the project. This process uses a systematic approach to identify all of the project stakeholders, ranking the stakeholders by varying factors, and then addressing stakeholders’ needs, requirements, and expectations. Stakeholder analysis follows three logical steps:

1.  Identify the project stakeholders and their interest, influence, project contributions, contact information, and expectations of the project. You can complete this through interviews to determine who are the project decision-makers and champions of the project’s objectives.

2.  Prioritize the identified stakeholders based on their power, influence, or impact on project decisions. Project managers can use a grid system to rank stakeholder attributes from low to high.

3.  Anticipate and plan how stakeholders will respond in different project scenarios. This anticipation helps the project manager influence the stakeholders and prepare them for project news, actions, and risk management.

Sometimes it’s best to visualize how the stakeholders can influence the project. You don’t want to spend hours and hours meeting with stakeholders that have little power over and little influence on your project. This doesn’t mean you ignore stakeholders with little power and little influence; you simply manage them differently than you would the CIO or the primary project customer. Classification models can help you rate the stakeholders who have the most power and influence over the project. One of the most common models, shown in Figure 13-1, is a power-interest grid. Instead of listing stakeholders’ names, you’d use letters or numbers to plot their power-interest on the grid.

FIGURE 13-1   A power-interest grid depicts the stakeholders’ power and interest over the project.

Each type of classification model demonstrates the amount of power, influence, interest, and impact a stakeholder can have on a project. Although all of the models are similar, they each rate differing factors of the stakeholders:

  Power/interest grid   This grid shows the relationship between the stakeholders’ power and interest over the project objectives.

  Power/influence grid   This chart maps the amount of power and influence the stakeholders have over the project objectives.

  Influence/impact grid   Similar to the other models, this chart plots out stakeholders’ influence in the project in relation to the impact of their power over the project decisions and objectives.

  Salience model   This model typically uses three circles to show stakeholders’ power, urgency, and legitimacy over the project work, decisions, and influence on project objectives.

A salience model is a stakeholder classification that ranks stakeholders based on their power, urgency, and legitimacy in the project.

Creating a Stakeholder Register

Stakeholder identification should help the project manager create a stakeholder register. This document defines the stakeholders and their contact information for the project. The stakeholder register is a directory of all the stakeholders and should include the following:

  Stakeholder name and contact information

  Geographic location

  Project role and contribution

  Project requirements and expectations

  Project influence

  Phase of the project the stakeholder is most concerned with

  Details on the stakeholder’s role: for example, internal or external, supporter of the project, negative stakeholder, or neutral

The stakeholder registry can help the project management team create a stakeholder management strategy. This strategy is an effort to manage stakeholder expectations and create synergy and buy-in. A stakeholder analysis matrix can help define the stakeholders’ interest, assessment of project impact, and any potential responses to the anticipated stakeholder results.

  See the video “Mapping the Stakeholders.”

CERTIFICATION OBJECTIVE 13.02

Planning Stakeholder Management

Stakeholder management planning is the process of creating a strategy to manage the stakeholders in the project. It’s the analysis of what the stakeholders want the project to do, how the stakeholders’ wants align with those of other stakeholders, and the prioritization of the stakeholders within the project. In other words, it involves balancing the most important stakeholders in the project with the stakeholders who have less interest and influence over the project requirements.

That’s right—some stakeholders are more important than others. Some project managers bristle at the concept that not all stakeholders are considered equal. Sorry, but they aren’t. If you’re paying a company to build a house for you—a house that you’ve visualized and designed—do you really care that the landscaper in the project thinks your bedroom should go in the basement? No, you probably don’t; you’ve already created the house, you know where you want the rooms, and, besides, you’re paying for the new home, not the guy planting shrubs in the backyard. Now this doesn’t mean you tell the landscaper to buzz off; you still have to manage the landscaper because he is a stakeholder in the project—he’s just not the most important stakeholder.

Stakeholder management is about managing how the project will affect the stakeholders during the project execution and after the project is done. A software development project, for example, might include the stakeholders’ input to the design stage, but you’ll also need to address the post-project support for the end users. The end users may be scared of what the project will create and how they’ll use the deliverables in their day-to-day lives. Stakeholder management is about communication and addressing the needs, wants, threats, and even the perceived threats of stakeholders with regard to the project, and this requires a plan.

Organizing the Planning

Because you’re creating a strategy for managing the project stakeholders, you’ll need to gather several document and project components to craft your approach effectively. You’ll use these to help you understand the stakeholders—to see the project and deliverables from their perspective—and to guide your strategy. You’ll need the following components:

  Project management plan   The project management plan, as much as it may be created, will define the project’s life cycle, how the work is to be executed, the resources needed, staffing management, reporting relationships in the project, the change management processes, and communication needs.

  Stakeholder register   The recently created stakeholder register will help you identify the stakeholders and formulize a strategy for stakeholder management.

  Enterprise environmental factors   The culture of an organization, regulations that affect the project, and organizational policies will help with stakeholder management planning.

  Organizational process assets   Lessons learned and historical information, especially from projects with the same or similar stakeholders, can provide insight on how best to manage the project stakeholders.

Analyzing Stakeholder Engagement

At the launch of a project, it’s not unusual for the stakeholders to be excited about what you’re about to create. They’ll envision the better future state, the problem solved, the new opportunities seized. Stakeholders will want to come to your status meetings, they’ll gladly respond to project-related e-mails, and you can always get answers to your questions. But then the bloom begins to fade—especially on longer projects. Stakeholders get busy with other projects and other more pressing demands, and their interest in the project wanes.

Stakeholder engagement is the process of keeping stakeholders interested, involved, and supportive of the project. You need to help maintain the stakeholders’ energy for the project and keep them contributing and excited about what the project is creating. Stakeholder analysis is an approach that measures who’s interested in the project work and whose interest is fading. Stakeholder analysis helps you create a strategy to keep stakeholders engaged in the project.

You’ll perform stakeholder analysis not just at the beginning of a project, but throughout the project. You’ll monitor the status of the stakeholders and determine whether any attitudes toward the project success have changed. After analysis, you can categorize stakeholders into five groups:

  Unaware   The stakeholder doesn’t know about the project or the effect the project may have on the stakeholder.

  Resistant   The stakeholder is aware of your project but isn’t keen on the changes your project will create.

  Neutral   The stakeholder is aware of your project and doesn’t care if the project succeeds or fails.

  Supportive   The stakeholder is aware of your project, is happy about the project, and hopes your project is successful.

  Leading   The stakeholder is aware of your project, wants the project to succeed, and is helping to lead the charge to make certain the project outcome is positive.

  Your interactions with the stakeholders will help you determine who’s excited about the project, who’s unaware of the project changes, and who just doesn’t want your project to succeed. You can chart out the results of stakeholder analysis in a simple table, but keep this chart away from prying eyes. You don’t want a negative stakeholder to see the analysis and become more agitated and aggressive about the project. This analysis helps you and the project team create a plan for stakeholder engagement; it’s not a plan for political battles in the office.

Building the Stakeholder Management Plan

The stakeholder management plan helps the project manager and the project team define a strategy for managing the project stakeholders. It helps to establish stakeholder engagement at the launch of the project and throughout the project life cycle, and shows how to improve upon the level of engagement identified. Stakeholder management doesn’t necessarily aim to win over all of the stakeholders to the project’s vision, but it can help you manage the stakeholders’ attitudes toward the project. For example, the CEO of a company can say that the organization will be migrating to a new type of software. The end users may not be happy about the choice—in fact, they could be angry about the choice. The organizational power, the CEO, however, has defined the project and mandate so the project manager must complete the project accordingly.

Just because you have a negative stakeholder—or even many negative stakeholders—doesn’t mean that your project will fail. Negative stakeholders who are in a position to influence project decisions, or even hold up the project due to indecisions, must still be managed. The power influence of the stakeholder directly affects how the project manager manages the stakeholder in the project. These are the types of conditions that need to be documented and strategized in the stakeholder management plan. It’s an honest assessment of who the stakeholders are and how the stakeholders can help or hinder the project.

The stakeholder management plan defines the following:

  Current stakeholder engagement levels and goals for improvement

  Relationships among stakeholders

  Communication requirements for the project stakeholders

  Information to be distributed to the stakeholders, the modality of the information to be distributed, and the expectations of the stakeholders regarding the information format

  Documentation of why project information is distributed to which stakeholders and the expected outcome of the information distribution

  Schedule of stakeholder information distribution

  Plan and schedule for updating the stakeholder management plan as needed based on conditions within the project

The stakeholder management plan can be adapted from organizational process assets—specifically, older and similar projects. The stakeholder management plan is tightly linked to the project’s communication management plan, especially with regard to information distribution. Both plans define who needs what information, when the information is needed, and the expected modality of the information. The stakeholder management plan, however, predicts and documents how the stakeholders will react to the information that the project manager distributes. It shouldn’t take a mind reader to know that bad news won’t be accepted gently from the stakeholders. This prediction of the news, good or bad, should help the project manager determine the best modality and format in which to deliver the news.

Never present a problem without also presenting a solution. Be proactive with your stakeholders by helping them make the decision you want them to make.

CERTIFICATION OBJECTIVE 13.03

Promoting Stakeholder Engagement

Early in the project, it’s obvious that stakeholders need to be involved, but as the project moves forward, stakeholder engagement often tends to wane. Stakeholder engagement simply means that you’re keeping the stakeholders involved in the project, you’re communicating with the project stakeholders, and you’re addressing their needs, fears, and perceptions about the project work. In some instances, stakeholder engagement means that you’re working with negative stakeholders through negotiations to overcome their opposition to the project.

Stakeholder engagement is linked closely to project communications. Recall in Chapter 10 the purpose of the project communications management plan: to get the right message to the right audience at the right time. Stakeholder engagement relies heavily on the project communications management plan as part of its approach. The project communications must be accurate, timely, and precise, or the project manager could damage the relationship between the project and the stakeholders. You don’t want to create new problems for the project—and new stakeholder management challenges—by simply failing to communicate. Communication of good or bad news is something that the project manager should always do.

You’ll need four total inputs in the stakeholder engagement process:

  Stakeholder management plan   This plan defines the approach, strategies, and opportunities for managing the project stakeholders.

  Communications management plan   This plans defines the stakeholders’ needs for communications, the schedule for communications, and the accepted communication modalities.

  Change log   Approved and declined changes in the project change control system can trigger stakeholder engagement.

  Organizational process assets   Historical information, change control procedures, the approach for issue management, and your organization’s communication methodology are all organizational process assets that are used as part of stakeholder engagement inputs.

Engaging Stakeholders

As soon as other people and groups get involved in the project, you’re starting the process of stakeholder engagement. Ideally, you’ve had time to plan and ponder how to engage stakeholders, but often your interactions with stakeholders are early in the project. This is where your years of experience as a project manager and professional come into play: You instinctively know how to deal with people and how to respect people, and you understand their needs and wants for the project. These are the interpersonal skills that you develop and refine over time, the softer skills of project management that you’ll finesse with practice, through trial and error, and through maturity. You’ll need the following interpersonal skills to engage stakeholders:

  Actions, to earn trust

  Conflict resolution, to solve problems among stakeholders

  Active listening to stakeholders to understand their requirements and concerns for the project

  Persuasion, to overcome stakeholders’ opposition to the project

Your interpersonal skills must be balanced with your management skills. As likeable and charming as you may be, you must have some management skills to help move the project and stakeholders along. Management is about getting things done—organizing and directing people to work together, rather than independently, to get the project done. As a project manager, you need the organization, vision, and authority to guide and direct the project team, vendors, organizations, and other stakeholders to dig in and get the work done. You’ll need the following management skills to engage stakeholders:

  Ability to present project information

  Ability to negotiate with stakeholders

  Ability to write and communicate

  Ability to speak in public

Notice that all of these management skills are linked in some way to communication. Communication is the underlying principle to engaging stakeholders effectively. When you communicate with stakeholders, you’re interacting with them, you’re providing information, and you’re taking in information—that’s the engagement of stakeholders. Communication is so important for a project manager that if you fail to communicate well, your project is likely doomed.

Three types of communications are linked to effective stakeholder engagement:

  Interactive communications   Information is flowing among stakeholders in a forum. Meetings, videoconferences, phone conferences, and even ad hoc conversations are all examples of interactive communications in which the participants are actively communicating with one another to ensure that all participants receive the correct messages and conclusions.

  Push communications   In push communications, the sender pushes the same message to multiple people. Think of memos, faxes, press releases, broadcast e-mails: These are all pushed from one source to multiple recipients.

  Pull communications   Often projects use web sites to present project information, reports, status updates, and documents for project stakeholders to peruse. Such a central repository of information allows stakeholders to pull the information from the central source when they want it. In pull communication, the stakeholders retrieve the information as they desire rather than the information being sent, or pushed, to them.

Examining Results of Stakeholder Engagement

Stakeholder engagement provides many benefits for the project manager, but chief among them is feedback from the project stakeholders. The whole point of stakeholder engagement is to keep stakeholders involved in the project, to foster communications, and to safeguard the project from delays, wasted time, and miscommunications. Although stakeholder involvement creates feedback for the project manager and the project team, you should be familiar with the following five outputs of the process for your PMP exam:

  Issue log   You’ll probably have created an issue log in your project, but you might want to include a special section for issues that arise from stakeholder engagement. You can document new issues you discover and issues that have been successfully resolved.

  Change requests   Ah, yes.… Change requests are a likely output of stakeholder engagement. Although changes can be the bane of a project manager’s job, they are expected and need to be managed. Remember, too, that just because someone asks for a change doesn’t necessarily mean the change is going to happen in the project.

  Updates to the project management plan   The project management plan is a fluid document that will evolve throughout the project life cycle. Stakeholder engagement can cause the project management plan to be updated through change requests, risk identification, quality concerns, changes to communication needs, and more. As you engage stakeholders, they become more involved with the project, and their involvement should help you refine the project management plan.

  Updates to the project documents   All of the documents, such as the risk register, issue log, change log, stakeholder register, and other documentation that isn’t officially part of any project management plan, can be updated as a result of stakeholder engagement.

  Organizational process assets   Updates to the organizational process assets will happen as a result of the stakeholder engagement process. Consider stakeholder notifications, project reports, presentations, stakeholder feedback, project records, and lessons-learned documentation that will become part of the organizational process assets.

Stakeholder engagement is about getting stakeholders involved and maintaining their involvement in the project. Feedback from stakeholders helps you, the project manager, better manage the project. This is a new process in PMBOK 5, so you should anticipate some exam questions on this process.

CERTIFICATION OBJECTIVE 13.04

Controlling Stakeholder Engagement

Although it would be nice and dreamy for stakeholder engagement to run itself, it doesn’t work that way. You, the project manager, must be involved in the process, adjusting your actions, fostering relationships, and keeping an eye on stakeholders and their wants, needs, fears, and perceived threats. Projects will evolve, change, and fall prey to gossip, politics, and other nasty elements, but you’ll have to keep stakeholders involved to solve problems, be readily available to communicate, and take on challenges as they pop up. Projects are created by and for people, so it makes sense that you’ll have to control the depth of stakeholder engagement as the project moves toward its happy conclusion.

Controlling stakeholder engagement isn’t a stand-alone process. Like all project management processes, it’s integrated with the other knowledge areas. Consider the decisions you’ll make in any area of the project and how those decisions will affect your stakeholders. Stakeholders usually put their trust and confidence in you to lead the project, but times will occur when a decision or action won’t keep all the stakeholders satisfied and content with the project. These are the moments you’ll need to take action, to communicate with stakeholders and help them see why your actions, decisions, and good judgment are best for the overall project.

Taking Action for Stakeholder Engagement

Controlling stakeholder engagement means that you, the project team, and the key stakeholders are communicating with one another on a consistent basis. If, for example, your project team is conveying information to stakeholders that differs from what you’re telling stakeholders, trouble will abound. When stakeholders hear conflicting information about the project, they’ll be confused and concerned, and often they may choose to listen to the message that suits them best. The foundation for stakeholder engagement, and controlling stakeholder engagement, begins with a solid foundation of communications.

To control stakeholder engagement, you’ll need several components to help with the process:

  Project management plan   The project management plan helps you control stakeholder engagement because it establishes the project governance and project framework. This plan defines the project’s life cycle, the plan for executing the project work, roles and responsibilities, staffing management, and how the project will operate within the organizational structure. It also defines the needed change control system. Finally, from the project management plan, you’ll rely heavily on the project communications management plan.

  Project documents   Specifically, you’ll need the project schedule, stakeholder register, risk register, change log, and project communications. You might also need, depending on the situation, any other project documentation that will help you keep and control stakeholder engagement.

  Issue log The issue log is needed to define, track, and record the outcome of issues that occur in the project. Issues will happen throughout the project—they always do—and the issue log will provide some structure for the management of the issues and, in turn, will help you control stakeholder engagement.

  Work performance data   Key performance metrics are measured, analyzed, and reported. This includes such objectives as time, cost, percentage of work completed, quality control measurements, and any other factors that need to be measured in your project. These elements will help you communicate the project’s health and manage the stakeholder expectations of the project’s success. You’ll typically measure work performance at predesignated points in the project, such as at milestones or key project deliverables.

INSIDE THE EXAM

Stakeholder engagement is crucial for successful projects, and that means that you, the project manager, must get the project stakeholders involved. It’s a huge mistake for a project manager to get the project stakeholders to sign off on the project scope and then go about the project work with few communications with the project stakeholders. The project manager and the project’s stakeholders must work together throughout the project, not just at the launch and the project’s closure. This is a key exam point: Communication with the stakeholders is the crux of stakeholder engagement.

The first process of stakeholder engagement management is to identify the project stakeholders. Ideally, you’ll identify the project stakeholders as early as possible in the project. One of the key methods used for identifying the stakeholders is to ask current stakeholders who else should be involved in the project. Analysis of the project, its impact on the organization, and the people and groups the project affects are mandatory considerations as you identify the stakeholders. Each stakeholder should be recorded in the stakeholder register.

For your exam, be familiar with these three tools and techniques for identifying stakeholders:

  Stakeholder analysis

  Expert judgment

  Meetings

As with all knowledge areas in project management, you’ll need a plan. The stakeholder management plan defines the stakeholders, the strategy for managing stakeholders, and your approach for how you’ll keep stakeholders involved in the project. This process is tightly linked to the project’s communication management plan, so it may be ideal to create these two plans in tandem or, at a minimum, document how the contents of one plan affect the contents of the other. Three tools and techniques are used for planning for stakeholder engagement:

  Expert judgment

  Meetings

  Analytical techniques

Once you have created a stakeholder management plan, you’ll continue the process of managing stakeholder engagement. I say “continue the process of stakeholder engagement” because you can start this process even before the stakeholder management plan exists. Stakeholders are involved from the project launch, before the stakeholder management plan is completed.

Your experience as a project manager and a leader will help you keep the stakeholders engaged. Issue management is a key part of stakeholder engagement, and the issue log will need to be updated to reflect the identified issues and their outcomes. Three tools and techniques are required for managing stakeholder engagement:

  Communication methods

  Interpersonal skills

  Management skills

Finally, you’ll control the stakeholder engagement by working with your project team to communicate effectively, manage project issues, control changes within the project, and provide accurate project information to the stakeholders throughout the project. The project management plan, the issue log, work performance data, and project documents all contribute to the process of controlling stakeholder engagement. You’ll also use three tools and techniques for controlling stakeholder engagement:

  Reporting systems

  Expert judgment

  Meetings

  When in doubt, communicate. The largest problem I’ve experienced as a project management consultant is that project managers don’t communicate with their stakeholders. Communication is the number one activity for improving your project.

Completing Stakeholder Engagement Control

The actual act of controlling stakeholder engagement requires, of course, communications among the project manager, project team, and other key stakeholders, but some tools and techniques can also assist the process. One of the primary tools is simply to meet with stakeholders. That’s right, meetings. Face-to-face meetings are one of the best communication methods because you gain insight via nonverbal communications and you and the stakeholders can quickly hash out any differences, find resolutions, and then get back to the project.

You can also use a reporting system tool, which is usually a software program that can capture, store, and provide data analysis on the project. A good reporting tool allows the project manager to take project information, such as percentage of work complete, run the data through some earned value analysis, and then create reports to share with the stakeholders. This is also a good example of a tool that could be a push communicator—you’d push the reports out to the stakeholders—and a tool that would also serve as a pull communicator—stakeholders could retrieve the information as they see fit. In either case, the central repository of project data allows the project manager to create reports, make presentations, and perform data analysis.

The final tool and technique you’ll use to control stakeholder engagement is to rely on expert judgment. Experts, such as senior management, organizational units, functional managers, other project managers, consultants, and key stakeholders, can help the project manager identify new stakeholders, resolve issues among stakeholders, and provide assessment of current stakeholders. This tool also provides an approach to remove management of stakeholders who may no longer be involved in the project.

Reviewing the Results of Controlling Stakeholder Engagement

You’ll never really stop controlling stakeholder engagement until your project moves into closure. Throughout the project, you’ll have different levels of stakeholder engagement, which in turn will require different levels of control. As a general rule, the larger the project, the more stakeholders will be involved, and this will mean the more stakeholder engagement control you’ll have to provide. Actively controlling stakeholders helps you keep an eye on the project progress, keep stakeholders from losing interest and support in the project, and keep accountable to key stakeholders who are sponsoring and paying for the project.

There are four outputs of controlling stakeholder engagement:

  Work performance information   The data that has been collected throughout the project is assimilated and analyzed, and the result information is used by the project manager to make project decisions. Examples include the project schedule status, percentage of work completed, and forecasts for project schedule and costs.

  Change requests   Work performance information, stakeholder communications, and the results of the project work can all lead to change requests in the project. Change requests do include recommended corrective and preventive actions.

  Project document updates   Documents, in particular the stakeholder register and the issue log, will likely be updated as a result of controlling stakeholder engagement. These documents will become part of organizational process assets once the project is closed.

  Organizational process assets updates   The documentation and communication created through stakeholder engagement control will become part of organizational process assets. In particular, stakeholder notifications, project reports, project records, presentations, and feedback from stakeholders are all included in the organizational process assets the project creates. You’ll also need to include the project’s lessons-learned documentation that may come about as a result of stakeholder engagement.

CERTIFICATION SUMMARY

Stakeholders are the people involved in the project and the people who are affected by the project. If you, as the project manager, will be speaking with someone about the project, chances are that person is a stakeholder. Stakeholders can influence the success or failure of the project. Positive stakeholders are the people who are cheering your project onward and want your project to succeed. Negative stakeholders are the humbugs who don’t want your project to exist at all. Finally, neutral stakeholders, such as inspectors and procurement people, don’t care one way or the other about your project’s success.

Stakeholders need to be identified as early as possible in the project—and new stakeholders will be identified throughout the project life cycle. This process ensures that the appropriate stakeholders are involved in the project; if you overlook a stakeholder in the project, this person or group of people won’t be keen on cheering your project forward. Meeting with existing stakeholders can help you identify other stakeholders. Consultants, management, and other project managers in the organization can also help you identify who should be involved in the project. A stakeholder register is a log of all the stakeholders you’ve identified along with their attitudes, interests, and concerns about the project.

A stakeholder management plan is a tool to help you create a strategy for managing stakeholder concerns, interests, and level of engagement in the project. The stakeholder management plan is tied to the project’s communication management plan, because so much of stakeholder management is about communicating with stakeholders. You need to know who needs what information, when the information is needed, and what is the best approach to deliver the project information. Stakeholders have expectations about project communication, and it’s up to the project manager to identify those expectations and meet them throughout the project.

Stakeholder engagement is a process of keeping stakeholders involved, interested, and contributing to the project. If the stakeholders lose interest in the project, especially stakeholders with lots of influence on the project decisions, the project can succumb to politics, negativity, and lack of organizational interest—not something any project manager wants to happen. Stakeholder engagement helps the project manager keep the stakeholders engaged and informed in the project through communications, interpersonal skills, and management skills. You must meet, talk with, and encourage stakeholders to contribute to the project to keep their interest and involvement.

Key Terms

To pass the PMP exam, you will need to memorize the following terms and their definitions. For maximum value, create flashcards based on these definitions and review them daily. The definitions can be found within this chapter and in the glossary.

interactive communications   A flow of information among stakeholders in which participants are actively communicating with one another to ensure that all participants receive the correct message and conclusions. Meetings, videoconferences, phone conferences, and even ad hoc conversations are examples of interactive communications.

leading stakeholders   Stakeholders who are aware of your project, want the project to succeed, and are leading the charge to make certain the project outcome is positive.

negative stakeholders   Stakeholders who are opposed to the project’s existence; they do not want the project to succeed because they do not see or agree with the benefits the project may bring about for the organization.

neutral stakeholders   Stakeholders who are not affected by the project’s success or failure, such as inspectors, procurement officers, and some end users.

positive stakeholders   Stakeholders who want the project to succeed; these are often the people who have the most to gain from the project’s success and/or the most to lose if the project fails.

pull communications   The central repository of information allows stakeholders to pull the information from the central source when they want it. In pull communications, the audience retrieves the information as they desire rather than the information being sent, or pushed, to them.

push communications   The sender pushes the same message to multiple people via memos, faxes, press releases, broadcast e-mails, and other forms of group communication.

profile analysis meeting   A meeting that examines each of the roles in the project and documents each role’s interests, concerns, influence, knowledge about the project, and likely attitude toward the project.

reporting system   Often a software program that can capture, store, and provide data analysis regarding the project. A good reporting system tool allows the project manager to gather project information, such as percentage of work complete, run the data through some earned value analysis, and then create reports to share with stakeholders.

resistant stakeholders   Stakeholders who are aware of your project, but they aren’t keen on the changes your project will create.

stakeholder analysis   A process that considers and ranks project stakeholders based on their influence, interests, and project expectations. This process uses a systematic approach to identify all of the project stakeholders, ranking the stakeholders by varying factors, and then addressing stakeholders’ needs, requirements, and expectations.

stakeholder classification models   Grids that rank stakeholders’ influence in relation to their interest in the project. Several types of these models are used as part of stakeholder analysis. The most common models are the power/interest grid, the power/influence grid, the influence/impact grid, and the salience model.

stakeholder engagement   The process of keeping stakeholders interested, involved, and supportive of the project. The project manager needs to maintain the energy of the stakeholders and keep them contributing to and excited about the project.

stakeholder identification   The process of ensuring that all of the stakeholders have been identified as early as possible in the project: all of the stakeholders are identified and represented, and their needs, expectations, and concerns are addressed.

stakeholder management   A project management knowledge area that focuses on four activities: identifying the project stakeholders, planning on how to manage the stakeholders, managing the stakeholders, and controlling the stakeholders’ engagement.

stakeholder management plan   A plan that helps the project manager and the project team define a strategy for managing the project stakeholders. It helps to establish stakeholder engagement at the launch of the project and throughout the project life cycle, and it offers information about how to improve the level of engagement identified.

stakeholder management planning   The process of creating a strategy to manage the stakeholders in the project. It’s the analysis of what the stakeholders want the project to do, how the stakeholders’ expectations align with those of other stakeholders, and the prioritization of the stakeholders within the project.

stakeholder register   A register that documents all of the stakeholders’ information, position, concerns, interests, and attitude towards the project. The stakeholder register should be updated as new stakeholders are identified or as stakeholders leave the project.

supportive stakeholders   Stakeholders who are aware of your project, are happy about the project, and hope your project is successful.

unaware stakeholders   Stakeholders who don’t know about the project and the effect the project may have on them.

 

TWO-MINUTE DRILL

Identifying the Project Stakeholders

  Stakeholders are all the people, groups, and organizations that can affect the project or that are affected by the project.

  Stakeholder identification should begin as early as possible in the project and should continue throughout the project.

  Stakeholder analysis helps the project manager rate the stakeholders’ influence, power, interest, and impact on the project. This analysis can be charted into a classification model.

  All identified stakeholders are documented in the stakeholder register. The stakeholder register includes the stakeholders’ identification, assessment of the project, and classification of stakeholder type.

  The stakeholder register should be updated as new stakeholders are identified in the project, when stakeholders leave the project, or when stakeholder information changes during the course of the project.

Planning for Stakeholder Management

  The stakeholder management plan helps the project manager determine the required level of engagement for the identified stakeholders throughout the project life cycle.

  Stakeholder engagement is needed to keep stakeholders interested, involved, and informed about the overall project status.

  Stakeholders are categorized based on their project engagement levels as unaware, resistant, neutral, supportive, and leading. These rankings can change over the project life cycle, and they help the project manager determine the level of needed engagement and communication with the stakeholders.

  Planning for stakeholder management is linked closely to the project’s communication management plan. Stakeholders require varying levels of communication based on their needs, wants, concerns, and fears about the project.

Promoting Stakeholder Engagement

  The process of managing stakeholder engagement aims to meet stakeholders’ needs and expectations. Communicating with stakeholders and following the project’s stakeholder management plan and the project’s communications management plan accomplish much of this process.

  Stakeholder engagement aims to reinforce the concept that stakeholders share the ownership of the project.

  Communications with stakeholders are pushed to the stakeholder through a distribution system, pulled by the stakeholder from a central source, or are interactive among the stakeholders through multidirectional communications, such as meetings and conferences.

  Stakeholder engagement is also achieved through the project manager’s interpersonal skills, such as building trust, resolving conflicts among the stakeholders, and overcoming stakeholders’ resistance to the changes the project may bring about. Other management skills are also needed: presenting ideas and project status, facilitating negotiations, and communicating through writing and public speaking.

Controlling Stakeholder Engagement

  Stakeholder engagement, like many project management processes, has to be controlled throughout the project. There’s a balance between planning, executing, and controlling this knowledge area.

  A reporting system can help the project manager collect and distribute project information through reports, analysis, and pull communications.

  Stakeholder identification must also be controlled in the sense that new stakeholders must be identified as they become involved with the project. All stakeholders must be documented in the stakeholder register.

  Controlling stakeholder engagement may result in change requests, including corrective and preventive actions. Stakeholder engagement is reliant on project communications, so it’s natural that stakeholders may readily communicate desired changes or flaws they’ve identified in the project.

  Organizational process assets are updated as part of controlling the stakeholder engagement. This includes stakeholder notifications, reports, presentations, performance records, feedback, and lessons learned.

 

SELF TEST

  1.   You are the project manager of the Server Update Project for your organization. This project has 543 stakeholders, many of which are end users. Some of the end users are critical of the server update because they’re concerned about where the data is stored, how they’ll access the data in the future, and their mapped drives. You’ve communicated with all of the users that the server update will change how the users will access their files and home folders in the future. Now some of the end users have been complaining to their functional managers about the change. In this scenario, what type of stakeholders are the end users?

A.  Uninformed

B.  Negative

C.  Unresponsive

D.  Low influence/low interest

  2.   Beth is the project manager of a new construction project for her organization’s client. This project will construct a new bridge in a major thoroughfare in her city. Beth is preparing for stakeholder identification because she wants to capture all of the internal and external stakeholders who may influence and be influenced by this project. In her preparations, Beth will need all of the following documents as inputs except for which one?

A.  Project charter

B.  Enterprise environmental factors

C.  Organizational process assets

D.  Communications management plan

  3.   You are the project manager for a software development project for your company. This project will create a web-based application that will allow users to create maps for different hiking trails in North America. You’ll be working with developers who are employees of your company and developers who are contract-based. Your project will also include information from the National Parks Service, local communities, and hikers from around the United States. You and the project team will first complete stakeholder analysis to make certain that you’ve captured all of the project stakeholders. What are the three logical steps to stakeholder analysis for this project?

A.  Identify the stakeholders, prioritize the stakeholders, anticipate stakeholder responses

B.  Identify the stakeholders, confirm the project scope, communicate the project plan

C.  Identify the stakeholders, anticipate stakeholder responses, create a response strategy

D.  Identify the stakeholders, meet with the stakeholders to address concerns, create a stakeholder response plan

  4.   You have been working on a new project that will affect your entire organization of 1233 people. You and the project team know that you should create a stakeholder register for the stakeholders, but is it necessary to create 1233 entries in this register?

A.  Yes; all stakeholders should be identified.

B.  Yes, but it is appropriate to group the stakeholders for easier management.

C.  No; only the key stakeholders need to be identified in the stakeholder register.

D.  No; only negative stakeholders and key stakeholders must be documented in the stakeholder register.

  5.   Mike is the project manager of a new software deployment project that will affect 3235 people in his organization. He’s communicated the deployment and explained the effect the software will have on the organization, and his plan includes training for the end users. Some of the stakeholders, especially the functional managers, are worried about the deployment and how it will affect the organization’s productivity. Anna, the project sponsor, asks Mike to create a visual diagram showing which stakeholders can affect the project the most based on their power in the organization. What chart should Mike create?

A.  Power/influence diagram

B.  Pareto diagram

C.  Tornado diagram

D.  Ishikawa diagram

  6.   Harold is the project manager for a large construction project his company is completing for a client. This project has internal and external stakeholders, including members of the community who are opposed to the project, although it has been approved by the city. Harold is preparing to create a stakeholder management plan and he’s gathering several inputs for the plan’s creation. Which one of the following inputs will most help Harold create a strategy for stakeholder management and engagement?

A.  Project management plan

B.  Stakeholder register

C.  Enterprise environmental factors

D.  Communications management plan

  7.   You are the project manager of a large software deployment project for your organization. This project will replace the operating systems on the computers of all employees. Many of the employees are in favor of this change in operating systems while others are not. As part of your plan, you complete an analysis of the stakeholders. In this analysis, you and the project team have discovered that some of the project stakeholders didn’t know about the change in the company’s approved computer operating system. How would you classify these stakeholders?

A.  Unaware

B.  Uninformed

C.  Lacking

D.  Target for positive

  8.   You are the project manager of a large software deployment project for your organization. This project will replace the operating systems on the computers of all employees. Many of the employees are in favor of this change in operating systems while others are not. As part of your plan you complete an analysis of the stakeholders. In this analysis, you and the project team have also learned that the functional managers are not in favor of the change of the operating system for their employees’ laptops. How would you classify these stakeholders?

A.  Neutral

B.  Resistant

C.  Leading

D.  Hesitant

  9.   What is the purpose of the stakeholder management plan?

A.  To convert all stakeholders to positive, supportive stakeholders

B.  To identify the stakeholders who are opposed to the project

C.  To manage the stakeholders’ attitudes toward the project

D.  To communicate with the stakeholders about the project status

10.   Morgan is the project manager of a web site creation project for a client. Some employees at the client’s site are excited about the change and they are helpful with Morgan’s plan for the new web site design. In the stakeholder management plan, Morgan has identified the tactics for managing the stakeholders, and she has identified the positive stakeholders with which categorization?

A.  Happy

B.  Leading

C.  Supportive

D.  Informed

11.   You are a project manager for your company and you’ve just created the project’s stakeholder management plan. This plan is based on organizational process assets and enterprise environmental factors that you’re required to use in the project. The stakeholder management plan includes all of the following components except for which one?

A.  The relationships among the stakeholders

B.  The relationships among the project team

C.  The schedule of stakeholder information distribution

D.  Communication requirements for stakeholders

12.   Sam is the project manager of the GHQ Project for his company, and he’s recently discovered a scheduling conflict with two of the vendors on the project. Sam knows that the conflict will likely cause a two-week delay in the completion of the project. What should Sam do?

A.  Report the problem to management.

B.  Report the problem to the stakeholders.

C.  Say nothing unless the delay becomes greater than two weeks.

D.  Propose a solution to management.

13.   You are the project manager of a large project in your company. Your project has been in motion for three months, and you’re about to move into the first phase of project execution. Your sponsor calls to report that you’ve apparently overlooked some stakeholders during the project’s planning phase. What should you do now?

A.  Immediately contact the stakeholders, apologize, and analyze the stakeholders.

B.  Begin the project execution but contact the stakeholders for a meeting.

C.  Determine whether the oversight has damaged the project’s objectives.

D.  Schedule a meeting with the stakeholders to catch them up on the project.

14.   Steve is the project manager of a new project that will affect 4534 people in his organization. Some of the stakeholders are not happy about the project, but they understand the need for the project work. How should Steve manage these unhappy but compliant stakeholders?

A.  Ignore their complaints.

B.  Explain the benefits of the project.

C.  Categorize them as resistant.

D.  Some stakeholders may just be unhappy.

15.   Marvin is the project manager of a new project for his company. He’s been working with the project team and the project sponsor to keep the stakeholders engaged. As part of this process, Marvin will need four inputs to stakeholder engagement. Which one of the following is not one of the inputs for stakeholder engagement?

A.  Change log

B.  Organizational process assets

C.  Communications management plan

D.  Issue log

16.   You are the project manager of a large project that will affect how your organization accepts and processes orders from customers. Many of the stakeholders have strong opinions about the project and how it should proceed. Thomas, the manufacturing manager, and Jane, the sales manager, have been in conflict with one another over some of the project’s requirements. You’ve met with these two stakeholders to resolve the conflict, negotiate the difference, and come to an agreement about the requirements in the project. What stakeholder engagement tool and technique have you used effectively in this scenario? Choose the best answer.

A.  Active listening

B.  Stakeholder resolution

C.  Management skills

D.  Interpersonal skills

17.   One of the tools you’ll have to use as a project manager in the stakeholder management knowledge area is management skill. Management skills help you organize stakeholder concerns and keep the project moving forward. All of the following are examples of management skills except for which one?

A.  Presenting project information

B.  Negotiating with stakeholders

C.  Public speaking

D.  Analyzing work performance information

18.   You are the project manager of the JNH Project for your company. This project is scheduled to last 18 months and will affect 435 stakeholders in your organization. The project has sensitive information that only certain stakeholders should have access to, so you’ve created a plan for communicating the information to the correct parties throughout the project through special e-mail bulletins. What type of communication is secured e-mail considered to be?

A.  Push

B.  Interactive

C.  Sensitive

D.  Passive

19.   You are the project manager for your organization, and you’ve contracted two organizations to complete parts of the project. The project requires that these two different companies work together on parts of the project. One of the vendors will need to install network cables throughout a building, while the other company is responsible for connecting the networking cables to a central patch panel and to the individual networking receptacles. The vendors are in disagreement about how the work should take place. What’s the best approach to manage this scenario?

A.  The vendors are not stakeholders and must live up to the terms of their contract.

B.  The vendors are stakeholders, and you should determine who’ll do what activities in the project.

C.  The vendors are not stakeholders, but you should use conflict resolution to find the best solution for the contracted work.

D.  The vendors are project stakeholders, and you should utilize conflict resolution to find the best solution for the project.

20.   You are the project manager for your company. Your project sponsor has asked you to include interactive communications as part of your stakeholder management plan. Which one of the following examples best describes the concept of interactive communications in stakeholder management?

A.  Sending e-mail messages to select project stakeholders

B.  Creating a report on the project status

C.  Hosting a project status meeting

D.  Creating a secured project repository that only allowed stakeholders can access

21.   You are the project manager for your organization and you’re serving as a coach for several junior project managers. You’re currently reviewing the inputs for controlling stakeholder engagement with your project team. The team members are confused about some of the inputs needed for controlling stakeholder engagement. One of the inputs to controlling stakeholder engagement is the issue log. How does the issue log help you prepare to control stakeholder engagement?

A.  This is false; this issue log is not an input to control stakeholder engagement.

B.  This issue log will help you determine which stakeholders are causing the project issues.

C.  The issue log is needed only when issues are defined by stakeholders.

D.  The issue log will help you track and respond to issues and communicate issue status.

22.   Your project sponsor has requested that you find a software package to serve as a central repository for all project information. They’d like for the software to capture, store, and provide data analysis on key performance metrics. The software should be able to help complete reports, analyze data, and track overall project performance. What is the project sponsor requesting?

A.  Reporting system

B.  Earned value management system

C.  Project management information system

D.  Integrated change control system

23.   As a project manager, you must use multiple types of communication with stakeholders to keep them engaged with the project work. All of the following are types of communications that are related to stakeholder engagement except for which one?

A.  Pull communications

B.  Push communications

C.  Interactive communications

D.  Ad hoc communications

24.   Stakeholder engagement is key to a successful project, so you and the project team have created a stakeholder management plan that includes many different methods for engaging stakeholders. As part of your plan, you should also reference what other project management plan component?

A.  Project communications management plan

B.  Project procurement contracts

C.  Project scope statement

D.  Milestone charts for the project schedule

25.   You are the project manager of a new software development project in your company. Your company operates in a matrix environment and utilizes a project management office to structure projects. This current project has 78 stakeholders and will last for 18 months. Sam, one of the project stakeholders, informs you that two of his employees will be leaving the organization and will no longer be available as resources on your project. In addition to the project staffing management plan, what other document should you update?

A.  Stakeholder register

B.  Risk register

C.  Change log

D.  Project schedule

 

SELF TEST ANSWERS

  1.   You are the project manager of the Server Update Project for your organization. This project has 543 stakeholders, many of which are end users. Some of the end users are critical of the server update because they’re concerned about where the data is stored, how they’ll access the data in the future, and their mapped drives. You’ve communicated with all of the users that the server update will change how the users will access their files and home folders in the future. Now some of the end users have been complaining to their functional managers about the change. In this scenario, what type of stakeholders are the end users?

A.  Uninformed

B.  Negative

C.  Unresponsive

D.  Low influence/low interest

  B. Negative stakeholders are people who do not want your project to succeed or even exist in the organization.

  A, C, and D are incorrect. A is incorrect because uninformed describes a stakeholder who doesn’t know about your project; you’ll need to inform them about the project and how the project may affect them. C and D are incorrect because unresponsive and low influence/low interest are not correct descriptions of project stakeholders for your PMP examination. Although these answers may seem fitting, they are not the terminology used to describe stakeholder attitudes toward your project.

  2.   Beth is the project manager of a new construction project for her organization’s client. This project will construct a new bridge in a major thoroughfare in her city. Beth is preparing for stakeholder identification because she wants to capture all of the internal and external stakeholders who may influence and be influenced by this project. In her preparations, Beth will need all of the following documents as inputs except for which one?

A.  Project charter

B.  Enterprise environmental factors

C.  Organizational process assets

D.  Communications management plan

  D. Beth will not need the communications management plan as part of the stakeholder identification process.

  A, B, and C are all incorrect because these are the correct inputs for stakeholder identification. Note that the question asked which one is not an input to the process. Beth will need the project charter, enterprise environmental factors, organizational process assets, the communications management plan, and the procurement documents as inputs to stakeholder identification.

  3.   You are the project manager for a software development project for your company. This project will create a web-based application that will allow users to create maps for different hiking trails in North America. You’ll be working with developers who are employees of your company and developers who are contract-based. Your project will also include information from the National Parks Service, local communities, and hikers from around the United States. You and the projecl team will first complete stakeholder analysis to make certain that you’ve captured all of the project stakeholders. What are the three logical steps to stakeholder analysis for this project?

A.  Identify the stakeholders, prioritize the stakeholders, anticipate stakeholder responses

B.  Identify the stakeholders, confirm the project scope, communicate the project plan

C.  Identify the stakeholders, anticipate stakeholder responses, create a response strategy

D.  Identify the stakeholders, meet with the stakeholders to address concerns, create a stake holder response plan

  A. There are three logical steps to stakeholder analysis: First you need to identify the project stakeholders. Next, you’ll prioritize the stakeholders based on their role and influence in the project. Finally, you’ll anticipate stakeholder responses to issues, concerns, and requirements in the project.

  B, C, and D are all incorrect because these answers do not reflect the correct order of activities in stakeholder analysis. Although they begin with the correct answer of stakeholder identification, they do not follow the correct order of first identifying the stakeholders, prioritizing the stakeholders, and finally anticipating stakeholder responses.

  4.   You have been working on a new project that will affect your entire organization of 1233 people. You and the project team know that you should create a stakeholder register for the stakeholders, but is it necessary to create 1233 entries in this register?

A.  Yes, all stakeholders should be identified.

B.  Yes, but it is appropriate to group the stakeholders for easier management.

C.  No, only the key stakeholders need to be identified in the stakeholder register.

D.  No, only negative stakeholders and key stakeholders must be documented in the stakeholder register.

  B. A project that has this many stakeholders is likely to create groups of stakeholders to manage. For example, the stakeholders could be grouped by departments, roles in the organization, or even interests in the project. Grouping stakeholders helps the project manager address a large group with a common message rather than manage multiple messages to many stakeholders individually.

  A, C, and D are incorrect. It’s not practical or necessary to identify each individual stakeholder when grouping the stakeholders would suffice. Although the key stakeholders should be identified in the stakeholder register, the project manager should also identify and record the grouping of stakeholders in the register. Both positive and negative stakeholders are recorded in the stakeholder register, not just negative stakeholders.

  5.   Mike is the project manager of a new software deployment project that will affect 3235 people in his organization. He’s communicated the deployment and explained the effect the software will have on the organization, and his plan includes training for the end users. Some of the stakeholders, especially the functional managers, are worried about the deployment and how it will affect the organization’s productivity. Anna, the project sponsor, asks Mike to create a visual diagram showing which stakeholders can affect the project the most based on their power in the organization. What chart should Mike create?

A.  Power/influence diagram

B.  Pareto diagram

C.  Tornado diagram

D.  Ishikawa diagram

  A. Mike should create a power/influence diagram, which shows the correlation between power over the project and the influence over the project for each key stakeholder. Stakeholders with high power and high influence need to be managed more closely than stakeholders with low power and low influence, for example. This chart helps the project team create a better defined stakeholder management strategy and prioritization of stakeholders in the project.

  B, C, and D are incorrect. B, Pareto charts, show the distribution of defects as a result of quality control. C, tornado diagrams, show the forces for and against a decision. D, Ishikawa diagrams, are also called fishbone diagrams or cause-and-effect diagrams and are used to determine casual factors that are contributing to an effect in the project. Ishikawa diagrams are most often used in quality control.

  6.   Harold is the project manager for a large construction project his company is completing for a client. This project has internal and external stakeholders, including members of the community who are opposed to the project, although it has been approved by the city. Harold is preparing to create a stakeholder management plan and he’s gathering several inputs for the plan’s creation. Which one of the following inputs will most help Harold create a strategy for stakeholder management and engagement?

A.  Project management plan

B.  Stakeholder register

C.  Enterprise environmental factors

D.  Communications management plan

  B. Harold needs the stakeholder register to create a strategy for stakeholder management and engagement. The stakeholder register defines the role, interests, contact information, and attitudes of the stakeholders toward the project objectives.

  A, C, and D are all incorrect. Although Harold will rely on the project management plan, specifically the communications management plan, the most influential element for stakeholder management and engagement is the stakeholder register. This document defines the stakeholders, their interests and concerns, and the stakeholders’ attitudes toward the project objectives. C, enterprise environmental factors, are an input to stakeholder management planning as they define the organizational rules and policies for the stakeholder management and the structure of the organization.

  7.   You are the project manager of a large software deployment project for your organization. This project will replace the operating systems on the computers of all employees. Many of the employees are in favor of this change in operating systems while others are not. As part of your plan, you complete an analysis of the stakeholders. In this analysis, you and the project team have discovered that some of the project stakeholders didn’t know about the change in the company’s approved computer operating system. How would you classify these stakeholders?

A.  Unaware

B.  Uninformed

C.  Lacking

D.  Target for positive

  A. Stakeholders who don’t know about your project are classified as unaware. Unaware stakeholders have been overlooked in the planning of the project and they may be offended, have requirements that the project must add, or become resistant to the project’s existence because they have not been consulted and included in the project planning.

  B, C, and D are all incorrect. Uninformed, lacking, and target for positive are not stakeholder classifications.

  8.   You are the project manager of a large software deployment project for your organization. This project will replace the operating systems on the computers of all employees. Many of the employees are in favor of this change in operating systems while others are not. As part of your plan you complete an analysis of the stakeholders. In this analysis, you and the project team have also learned that the functional managers are not in favor of the change of the operating system for their employees’ laptops. How would you classify these stakeholders?

A.  Neutral

B.  Resistant

C.  Leading

D.  Hesitant

  B. These negative stakeholders can be accurately classified as resistant to the project goals. These functional managers and employees are resistant to the goals of the project, and it’s part of stakeholder management to determine the stakeholder objections and then create a strategy to overcome the resistance to change.

  A is incorrect because neutral describes a stakeholder that is neither for nor against the project. C is incorrect because leading describes the stakeholders who are working to ensure that the project is successful. D, hesitant, is not a categorization of stakeholders, so this is incorrect.

  9.   What is the purpose of the stakeholder management plan?

A.  To convert all stakeholders to positive, supportive stakeholders

B.  To identify the stakeholders who are opposed to the project

C.  To manage the stakeholders’ attitudes toward the project

D.  To communicate with the stakeholders about the project status

  C. The stakeholder management plan essentially creates a strategy to manage the stakeholders’ attitudes toward the project.

  A, B, and D are all incorrect because these answers do not describe the purpose of the stakeholder management plan. It is not the intent of the stakeholder management plan to convert all stakeholders to positive stakeholders, though that would be nice. Stakeholder identification, a process, identifies all stakeholders, positive or negative, and records their information in the stakeholder register. The communications management plan defines how the project manager and project team will communicate with the project stakeholders.

10.   Morgan is the project manager of a web site creation project for a client. Some employees at the client’s site are excited about the change and they are helpful with Morgan’s plan for the new web site design. In the stakeholder management plan, Morgan has identified the tactics for managing the stakeholders, and she has identified the positive stakeholders with which categorization?

A.  Happy

B.  Leading

C.  Supportive

D.  Informed

  C. Supportive stakeholders, as in this example, are aware of the project and the changes the project will bring, and are supportive of the project.

  A, B, and D are all incorrect. Happy stakeholders isn’t a classification of stakeholders. Leading stakeholders are the people that are cheering the project on, are working toward the project success, and are active in promoting the project and its success. Informed isn’t a classification for stakeholders, so this is incorrect.

11.   You are project manager for your company and you’ve just created the project’s stakeholder management plan. This plan is based on organizational process assets and enterprise environmental factors that you’re required to use in the project. The stakeholder management plan includes all of the following components except for which one?

A.  The relationships among the stakeholders

B.  The relationships among the project team

C.  The schedule of stakeholder information distribution

D.  Communication requirements for stakeholders

  B. The stakeholder management plan doesn’t address the relationships among the project team. The staffing management plan, part of human resources planning, may address team development and how the team interacts.

  A, C, and D are all incorrect because they are all part of the stakeholder management plan, which addresses several things: desired and current stakeholder engagement levels, relationships among stakeholders, communication requirements, information to be distributed, reasoning for communications and anticipated stakeholder responses, time frame and frequency of stakeholder communications, and method of updating the stakeholder management plan.

12.   Sam is the project manager of the GHQ Project for his company, and he’s recently discovered a scheduling conflict with two of the vendors on the project. Sam knows that the conflict will likely cause a two-week delay in the completion of the project. What should Sam do?

A.  Report the problem to management.

B.  Report the problem to the stakeholders.

C.  Say nothing unless the delay becomes greater than two weeks.

D.  Propose a solution to management.

  D. Problems will happen throughout a project, but the project manager should always present the bad news to the appropriate stakeholders and be prepared with a possible solution.

  A isn’t the best choice because this reports the problem only to management. A solution to the problem is also needed. B, report the problem to stakeholders, isn’t the best choice because all stakeholders may not need to know about the problem. In addition, the problem should also have a proposed solution. C is incorrect because saying nothing is ignoring the problem and may cause more issues within the project.

13.   You are the project manager of a large project in your company. Your project has been in motion for three months and you’re about to move into the first phase of project execution. Your sponsor calls to report that you’ve apparently overlooked some stakeholders during the project’s planning phase. What should you do now?

A.  Immediately contact the stakeholders, apologize, and analyze the stakeholders.

B.  Begin the project execution but contact the stakeholders for a meeting.

C.  Determine whether the oversight has damaged the project’s objectives.

D.  Schedule a meeting with the stakeholders to catch them up on the project.

  A. Although it’s imperative to identify all of the project stakeholders as early in the project as possible, it’s not uncommon for a project manager to overlook some of the stakeholders. When this happens, the project manager should immediately deal with the problem and look for a solution. In this case, contacting the stakeholders, apologizing for the oversight, and then analyzing the stakeholders’ attitudes toward the project will be most helpful.

  B, C, and D are incorrect. B isn’t the best answer because executing the project work may not be appropriate without the stakeholders’ input. C isn’t the best answer because it doesn’t include the stakeholders in the analysis of the project. Stakeholders need to be notified and communicated with about the project and how the project may affect them. Although D suggests contacting the stakeholders to schedule a meeting, it does not empathize with the stakeholders by apologizing for the mistake the project manager made in the project.

14.   Steve is the project manager of a new project that will affect 4534 people in his organization. Some of the stakeholders are not happy about the project, but they understand the need for the project work. How should Steve manage these unhappy but compliant stakeholders?

A.  Ignore their complaints.

B.  Explain the benefits of the project.

C.  Categorize them as resistant.

D.  Some stakeholders may just be unhappy.

  B. Steve should explain the benefits of the project and how the project will help the organization and the individuals affected by the project.

  A, C, and D are all incorrect. It’s never a wise idea to ignore the complaints of the stakeholders even if the complaints are invalid. Clear communications from the launch of the project can stem many complaints. To categorize the stakeholders as resistant may be appropriate, but simply categorizing the stakeholders doesn’t address their complaints or engage the stakeholders. Although it’s true that some stakeholders may just be unhappy, this answer doesn’t attempt to address the stakeholders’ needs or concerns.

15.   Marvin is the project manager of a new project for his company. He’s been working with the project team and the project sponsor to keep the stakeholders engaged. As part of this process, Marvin will need four inputs to stakeholder engagement. Which one of the following is not one of the inputs for stakeholder engagement?

A.  Change log

B.  Organizational process assets

C.  Communications management plan

D.  Issue log

  D. The issue log is not an input to stakeholder engagement.

  A, B, and C are all incorrect. To manage stakeholder engagement, the project manager will need four inputs: stakeholder management plan, communications management plan, organizational process assets, and the change log. The issue log is not needed for this process.

16.   You are the project manager of a large project that will affect how your organization accepts and processes orders from customers. Many of the stakeholders have strong opinions about the project and how it should proceed. Thomas, the manufacturing manager, and Jane, the sales manager, have been in conflict with one another over some of the project’s requirements. You’ve met with these two stakeholders to resolve the conflict, negotiate the difference, and come to an agreement about the requirements in the project. What stakeholder engagement tool and technique have you used effectively in this scenario? Choose the best answer.

A.  Active listening

B.  Stakeholder resolution

C.  Management skills

D.  Interpersonal skills

  D. Interpersonal skills include building trust, resolving conflict, active listening, and overcoming resistance to change.

  A, B, and C are incorrect. A, active listening, is an interpersonal skill, but in this example you’ve used conflict resolution. B, stakeholder resolution, is not a valid interpersonal skill or managerial skill. C is incorrect because management skills include presentations, negotiations, writing skills, and public speaking.

17.   One of the tools you’ll have to use as a project manager in the stakeholder management knowledge area is management skill. Management skills help you organize stakeholder concerns and keep the project moving forward. All of the following are examples of management skills except for which one?

A.  Presenting project information

B.  Negotiating with stakeholders

C.  Public speaking

D.  Analyzing work performance information

  D. Analyzing work performance information is not a management skill, but it is a facet of data analysis and preparing for stakeholder engagement.

  A, B, and C are all incorrect because these answers are examples of management skills you’ll use as a project manager.

18.   You are the project manager of the JNH Project for your company. This project is scheduled to last 18 months and will affect 435 stakeholders in your organization. The project has sensitive information that only certain stakeholders should have access to, so you’ve created a plan for communicating the information to the correct parties throughout the project through special e-mail bulletins. What type of communication is secured e-mail considered to be?

A.  Push

B.  Interactive

C.  Sensitive

D.  Passive

  A. Push communication describes information that is sent out to an audience or stakeholders via e-mail, memos, letters, or reports.

  B, C, and D are all incorrect. B, interactive communications, describe events, such as meetings or conferences, where information is exchanged among participants. C, sensitive, is not a valid communication type so this choice is incorrect. D, passive communication, also isn’t a valid choice. The three types of communication are push, pull, and interactive.

19.   You are the project manager for your organization, and you’ve contracted two organizations to complete parts of the project. The project requires that these two different companies work together on parts of the project. One of the vendors will need to install network cables throughout a building, while the other company is responsible for connecting the networking cables to a central patch panel and to the individual networking receptacles. The vendors are in disagreement about how the work should take place. What’s the best approach to manage this scenario?

A.  The vendors are not stakeholders and must live up to the terms of their contract.

B.  The vendors are stakeholders, and you should determine who’ll do what activities in the project.

C.  The vendors are not stakeholders, but you should use conflict resolution to find the best solution for the contracted work.

D.  The vendors are project stakeholders, and you should utilize conflict resolution to find the best solution for the project

  D. Vendors are stakeholders in the project, and the project manager must utilize conflict resolution to find the best solution for the project. Although the project contracts may already define the order of the work and the terms of the agreement, the project manager should meet with the vendors to come to an agreeable approach for all parties to work together and for the project to move forward smoothly.

  A, B, and C are all incorrect. The vendors are stakeholders because they are affected by the project and can definitely affect the project’s success. The contract should, in ideal conditions, define all aspects of the work and the requirements for the vendors to work together, but that’s not always the case. Should the issue escalate, there may be a need for alternative dispute resolution.

20.   You are the project manager for your company. Your project sponsor has asked you to include interactive communications as part of your stakeholder management plan. Which one of the following examples best describes the concept of interactive communications in stakeholder management?

A.  Sending e-mail messages to select project stakeholders

B.  Creating a report on the project status

C.  Hosting a project status meeting

D.  Creating a secured project repository that only allowed stakeholders can access

  C. Interactive communications means that the stakeholders can communicate with one another. Meetings, video conferences, and teleconferences are good examples of interactive communications.

  A, B, and D are all incorrect. E-mails are an example of a push communication. B, creating a report, doesn’t actually communicate with the stakeholders. D is an example of a pull communication as a central repository, such as a reporting system, which requires the stakeholders to query the central site to pull information from it.

21.   You are the project manager for your organization and you’re serving as a coach for several junior project managers. You’re currently reviewing the inputs for controlling stakeholder engagement with your project team. The team members are confused about some of the inputs needed for controlling stakeholder engagement. One of the inputs to controlling stakeholder engagement is the issue log. How does the issue log help you prepare to control stakeholder engagement?

A.  This is false; this issue log is not an input to control stakeholder engagement.

B.  This issue log will help you determine which stakeholders are causing the project issues.

C.  The issue log is needed only when issues are defined by stakeholders.

D.  The issue log will help you track and respond to issues and communicate issue status.

  D. Issues are risks that have come into fruition. Once the issue exists, you’ll need to document it in the issue log and then work to resolve the issues. Because issues will always affect stakeholders, you’ll use the issue log as part of your stakeholder engagement to resolve conflicts, issues, and communicate with the stakeholders.

  A, B, and C are all incorrect. The issue log is an input to stakeholder engagement (A), but it’s not necessarily used to identify stakeholders that are causing issues (B). Issues could happen by no fault of the stakeholders—consider a tornado or hurricane and how it may affect a project and the stakeholders. Stakeholders won’t prompt for the issue log (C); it is the project manager’s responsibility to bring the issue log into stakeholder engagement and issue resolution.

22.   Your project sponsor has requested that you find a software package to serve as a central repository for all project information. They’d like for the software to capture, store, and provide data analysis on key performance metrics. The software should be able to help complete reports, analyze data, and track overall project performance. What is the project sponsor requesting?

A.  Reporting system

B.  Earned value management system

C.  Project management information system

D.  Integrated change control system

  A. The project sponsor is asking for a reporting system. These help the project manager create reports but can also allow stakeholders to use pull communications to check in on the project’s progress.

  B is incorrect because earned value management can help predict and measure project performance, a nice addition to reporting, but it’s not a requirement of the reporting system. C is incorrect because the project management information system is a software tool that helps the project manager manage the project, not just create reports. D is incorrect because the integrated change control system is part of change control; it examines a change’s effect on the entire project.

23.   As a project manager, you must use multiple types of communication with stakeholders to keep them engaged with the project work. All of the following are types of communications that are related to stakeholder engagement except for which one?

A.  Pull communications

B.  Push communications

C.  Interactive communications

D.  Ad hoc communications

  D. Ad hoc communications is the best answer because it’s not a structured stakeholder management communication type. You will, as a project manager, use ad hoc communications to facilitate quick, informal communications, but it’s not a structured, planned approach to managing communication to and from the project stakeholders.

  A is incorrect because pull communications, such as information from a project web site, is a form of structured communications. B is incorrect because push communications, such as an e-mail or memo you’d send to the stakeholders, is a structured stakeholder management communication approach. C, interactive communications, is a structured and planned communication approach you’ll use to communicate with and among the project stakeholders.

24.   Stakeholder engagement is key to a successful project, so you and the project team have created a stakeholder management plan that includes many different methods for engaging stakeholders. As part of your plan, you should also reference what other project management plan component?

A.  Project communications management plan

B.  Project procurement contracts

C.  Project scope statement

D.  Milestone charts for the project schedule

  A. Stakeholder management and project communications are tightly linked together. You’ll need the project’s communication management plan to help you communicate properly with the correct stakeholders, at the correct time, with the correct message, and in the expected communication format.

  B is incorrect because the project’s procurement contract isn’t part of the project management plan. C is incorrect because the project scope is not needed for stakeholder engagement. D is incorrect because milestone charts are not an input to stakeholder engagement.

25.   You are the project manager of a new software development project in your company. Your company operates in a matrix environment and utilizes a project management office to structure projects. This current project has 78 stakeholders and will last for 18 months. Sam, one of the project stakeholders, informs you that two of his employees will be leaving the organization and will no longer be available as resources on your project. In addition to the project staffing management plan, what other document should you update?

A.  Stakeholder register

B.  Risk register

C.  Change log

D.  Project schedule

  A. The stakeholder register is the best answer because it contains information about the stakeholders that are currently involved in the project. When a stakeholder leaves the project, you should update the stakeholder register so that you don’t include non-stakeholders in project communications and engagement.

  B, C, and D are all incorrect. When a stakeholder leaves the project, you’ll update the stakeholder register. You won’t necessarily update the risk register or the project schedule because some stakeholders leaving the project won’t always affect these two elements of the project. There is no need to update the project’s change log simply because people have left the project.