From the course: Business Analysis for Project Managers

Stakeholder identification and assessment

From the course: Business Analysis for Project Managers

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Stakeholder identification and assessment

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- Stakeholders are so important. Remember, a stakeholder is anyone who might impact or be impacted by the project. One of the first project management activities, in addition to creating the project charter, is to identify and analyze stakeholders. This helps ensure that the appropriate parties are represented, informed and involved at key times during the project. So how do we find them? Well, first, start with those already associated with the project. That'll probably be the project leadership, sponsor, a product donor, domain expert, and/or a subject matter expert. Second, look into who was working on the idea before it was given official approval as a project. These folks can provide some great insight into the history and context of the idea. Third, take both those groups of people and ask them to identify additional stakeholders. You don't have to do all the work yourself and you obviously don't want to. The experience and knowledge these other folks have is much more valuable than you trying to do all the detective work yourself. Ask each of these people to send you a list of who they think are the project stakeholders. Now onto the analysis of the stakeholders. From a business analysis perspective, we want to go beyond deadlines, products, and their requirements. We want to understand each stakeholder or stakeholder group's perspective. Take your list. And for each stakeholder, identify the following. How much power do they have over the project? How much interest do they have in the project? How much will this project impact them? How urgent is the project completion for them? Not only do you need to figure this out at the onset, but you'll leave to learn more about your stakeholders as the project goes on. The area of stakeholder engagement is probably the area with the greatest overlap between the role of the business analyst and the project manager. What the business analysis component brings to the table is ensuring that the appropriate parties are represented, informed and involved at key times during the project. That's where business analysis skills come in handy. These analysis skills go beyond analyzing the product and its requirements. They also include a deeper analysis and understanding of the stakeholders. They do this by really getting to know them personally. They validate and expand on the answers to the questions we asked about a minute ago. As you can see, it's important to identify and analyze as many stakeholders as possible at the beginning of the project so an engagement plan can be established. This understanding of the most appropriate engagement is critical to the success of the project.

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