Analyzing Stakeholder Interests

Stakeholder analysis is the process of discovering who has a stake in your project and identifying their interests. To perform stakeholder analysis, you must identify the stakeholders, their roles and primary interests in the project. Then you must analyze the relationships between stakeholders, looking to capitalize on similarities and resolving differences.

• Step 1: Identify the stakeholders.
  Stakeholders can be internal or external. Internal stakeholders are the people directly involved in the functioning of your project. They include project managers, performing organizations, and project team members. External stakeholders are outside your organization. External stakeholders for your project may include sponsors, customers, suppliers, financial backers, special interest groups, the media and the public.
  

• Step 2: Identify their roles.
  You can enhance the usefulness of your list of stakeholders by determining the role each stakeholder plays in your project. Stakeholders may manage the project, provide financial or human resources, or provide supplies. Viewing stakeholders within the context of their roles is necessary to accomplish the rest of your stakeholder analysis.
  

• Step 3: Identify their primary interests.
  Once you know the roles of stakeholders, you can discover the interests they have. The interests of your stakeholders are the outcome of the roles they play in your project. The logical conclusion of what stakeholders do for your project is what they want from your project. It is important for you to know what they want from your project.
  

• Step 4: Analyze the relationships between stakeholders.
  Evaluating conflicting project desires is part of the fourth step of a stakeholder analysis. Once you have listed the stakeholders, their roles and interests, you can analyze the relationship between all the diverse interests in your project.
  

To properly analyze your stakeholders, you need to ask yourself:

1. How will each group respond to project decisions?
2. What effect will their reactions have?
3. How will their interaction with each other affect the project?

LUXX Corporation, an appliance manufacturer, is creating a new toaster for the market. Jodi is in charge of the project. She must determine how to prioritize the four departments' wishes, while demonstrating that she has taken everyone's requests into consideration. Jodi has identified the stakeholders and their competing interests in this project.

The research and development department wants more time to come up with the best toaster possible. It also wants to use its capabilities to the fullest by providing as many features as possible.

The marketing department wants to make this toaster attractive to the general public. This means promoting as many features as possible and having an early market release date, while keeping the price to a minimum.

The accounting department wants to keep costs low while charging the public as much as possible. It also wants this toaster to be on the market as soon as possible. Driving these desires is the interest in the margin of profit.

The quality assurance department wants a trouble-free toaster. The quality assurance department wants well-designed features, that work well, and plenty of time to complete proper testing procedures.

As you can see, many of these wishes conflict with one another.

The steps involved in stakeholder analysis are designed to reveal the conflicting interests among stakeholders so that these differences may be managed. Ultimately, stakeholder analysis helps you to gain the support of all your stakeholders and ensures that everyone involved in a project is directed toward the same project goals.

Key Attributes of an IT Project

Lawrence J. Peter once said, "If you don't know where you're going, you will probably end up somewhere else." This is particularly true of an IT project. To ensure the success of your IT project, you need to map out and follow an effective process.

Where do you start? Perhaps the best place to begin is to look at the concept of an IT project. The Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK) is a good source for information on project management in general. PMBOK describes a project as "a temporary endeavor undertaken to create a unique product, service, or result."

Every IT project has five key attributes that play particular roles in project development and completion. Details about these key project attributes are provided below.

1. Purpose
There must be a purpose to justify the need for a project. Many ideas for projects can be discovered through company surveys or questionnaires aimed at determining needs.

For example, in an e-learning corporation, a survey identified a need in the course development department for a program to log and maintain course status records. This will be the purpose of the corporation's next IT project.

2. Length
As noted above, PMBOK describes a project as "a temporary endeavor." In other words, an IT project has set beginning and end dates.

The length of the project will depend on its complexity. For example, a short-term project might be developing a report on a company's needs. A long-term project might be the creation of a database for collecting and generating statistics.

3. Resources
Resources for an IT project can include skilled employees from inside or outside of the company, hardware, software, and other assets as deemed necessary.

4. Sponsors
There may be many interested parties who have a stake in a project, but there is usually only one main sponsor. This main sponsor provides the needed direction and financing for the project.

Non-financial sponsors may be acquired if the project incorporates many departments within a company. For example, if the product of a project will be used by the accounting and human resources departments, it may be necessary to ask experts from each department to provide input to ensure departmental needs are considered.

5. Uncertainty
Every project will face uncertainty. Anything can go wrong. Although efforts should be made to ensure that the IT project plan is concise, factors such as time and cost can change due to unforeseen circumstances.

Key attributes are an important aspect of every project. Keeping these attributes in mind throughout the project can help you and your team meet established goals.