MANAGING STAKEHOLDER ENGAGEMENT

Stakeholder engagement is how you interconnect with your project's Stakeholders. It includes relationship building, communications, team building, and other soft skills in the context of your project; considering Stakeholder power, interest, expectations, and roles. Managing Stakeholder Engagement well will make your project run smoothly. It is one of the most important things a Professional Project Manager does.

By the time you get to this step you have:

> Identified project Stakeholders

> Classified the Stakeholders for Power and Interest

> Determined their expectations

> Worked on closing the gap between expectations and what can be done.

You are now ready to plan how you will engage your Stakeholders.

Looking for some tips on how to effectively engage the various Stakeholders in your project? Used with your Power-Interest Grid, this Stakeholder Strategies page (click the Word Docx icon below) provides really useful strategies for Stakeholder Engagement in each Power-Interest classification.

Stakeholder Strategies.docx

A few special cases for

Stakeholder Engagement:

1) Reluctant Participant:

treat as a low interest on Power-Interest Grid, and use appropriate strategy

2) Nay Sayer:

determine amount of Power held, then treat as high interest.

In all cases, try to find out what the Stakeholder wants/(does not want) out of the project, and play to that.

This video gives you some tips on dealing with difficult stakeholders.