Stakeholders

The issue: The term Stakeholder is viewed through a tight lens, which causes confusion

Ever notice how much we communicate to our stakeholders throughout a project? Project stakeholders, business stakeholders, executives—the list goes on and on. Every project has “built-in” communication for the related stakeholders, yet when the time comes to agree on who communicates with these groups and when, things get murky. Even more nebulous are the official messages such as formal announcements and final project closures. Who determines this message timing? Should the last message in a campaign come quickly after project launch or once the project change is stable among its new users? Oftentimes Project Managers and Change Managers are not aligned, which puts Communication Leads and many of those stakeholders in the middle: why is that?

FIRST – LET’S DEFINE THE WORD STAKEHOLDER: 
According to PMI’s Project Management Book of Knowledge version 6, the stakeholder definition is: An individual, group, or organization that may affect, be affected by, or perceive itself to be affected by a decisions, activity, or outcome of a project, program, or portfolio.

This means anyone from the CEO to the new intern could be a stakeholder, or even entities outside the organization, like third-party vendors or customers.  In fact, anyone who believes, thinks, or knows that the change of the project will impact them or be impacted by them is actually a stakeholder. That’s a very broad brush to paint with.

PART 1: Stakeholder Tunnel Vision: Interruption is everything

By comparing a Project Manager’s stakeholder register to a Change Manager’s stakeholder log, we can uncover key differences behind why the stakeholder term is so broadly used, an understanding that will help you, your organization, and your “stakeholders”.

The PM ensures the delivery of the project and reports timeline and budget. This is typically done in one direction, unless there are significant gaps or problems that stakeholders could raise to the organization’s leadership. PM stakeholders typically do not have an opportunity to impact the project's decision-making or adjust the main requirements once the project has started.

PM STAKEHOLDERS
Because the PM wants to meet the project charter defined by the portfolio Vice President and Project Management Office (PMO) leadership, the VP and PMO are the first stakeholders added to any PM’s stakeholder register.

Next, the project manager typically adds anyone who is needed to deliver the project, including those that help with requirement gathering and finalizing procurement of vendor services; subject matter experts who can determine the best solution to deliver the project within budget and timeline. 

The PM wants to ensure project success by preparing any secondary and tertiary teams to support the deployed project after its implementation.  Lastly, anyone whose role will be impacted by the scope of the project should be added to the stakeholder register: this could range from 10 to 100 people and stretch across an entire organization if applicable.

The CM wants to ensure that they clear obstacles in order to help transformation and transition in an organization, along with adoption of new technology.

The Change Manager needs to understand the stakeholders as much as the PM, but they organize their data differently in a “stakeholder log”, also known as audience groups list. Like the PM, the CM will first add their governing body—the Change Management Office, or CMO. 

The CMO, is typically where organizations look at stakeholders by similar verticals to PMO‘s, with an emphasis on the quality and timing of change that may impact performance or morale, and determine how extreme the change is. 

When a project impacts a broad enough group of people, or it is a drastic change, a CM is assigned. 

CM STAKEHOLDERS 
The organizational change manager builds their stakeholder log with three groups in mind. 
Group 1:  a list of Who is Involved – this can be done by copying the PM’s stakeholder register. 
Group 2:  a list of Who is Impacted – done by reviewing the different audience groups within the organization that will have to change their current skills or behaviors once the project is deployed or implemented. 
Group 3: a list or understanding of the network of relationships and key influencers around the organization. These are important to the change manager in order to establish a change champion group or advocacy program. This ties to who the impacted audience groups trust, who they will listen to when trying something new that affects their job and quality of work.

Change managers care about activities before the project is implemented.

The doing, the managing, the training, the socialization, the championing, and finally, the performing. Who is adopting new behaviors and skills and who will help bring those stakeholders up through adoption? The impacted and the impactors play a key part in communications. Note that looking at current state to future state impact is the heart of the stakeholder log.

PART 2: The Missing Piece: Who did we “forget”? 

That's the wrong question. 

Often when building out project stakeholder lists the question “who are we missing, who did we forget to add” is asked. The question shouldn’t be who did we forget, it should be “are we using who we have correctly.”

It’s not that stakeholders are missed or overlooked, it is that they are misunderstood in a project lifecycle and under-utilized throughout the transition leading up to the deployment. When PMs and CMs are not aligned with who best should communicate to whom, the opportunity to truly build the bridging partnership needed in any project involving behavioral change is at risk.

The first thing to do is incorporate the Communications Lead (CL) as early soon as reasonable – preferably at the planning cycle, which will allow them to understand the scope as well as help to foster the right partnerships early in the project. Most assume the Change Manager will perform as a Communications Lead; sometimes they do, but oftentimes in large organizations they are from different departments entirely. If they skip this opportunity for early collaboration, PMs and CMs may find themselves rushing to release a quick email message or website update without coordinating all of the tiny details that is CL’s focus – they spend much of their time maintaining or managing things like style and language guides. When a PM or CM focuses on those things, it not only slows the project down, but creates an opportunity for lower quality and delayed delivery to the impacted stakeholders that they care about.

Now, let’s review the Comms Lead (CL) perspective on Stakeholders to articulate further.

But doesn’t the Communications Lead simply handle email message delivery, and not really care about stakeholders? Yes and no. 

The CL cares about the content and three points. 

Point 1: Who controls the channel to communicate?
Point 2: Who approves the content?
Point 3: Who are we talking to? 

They plan heavily and strategize lightly. It comes down to what channels exist to deliver messages, and the choices of which one should be used, and when. 

Combining the PM, CM, and CL roles, we can see the opportunity to truly support the stakeholders. 

The PM is upstream, determining the requirements, the timeline, and how much change the impacted stakeholders will experience.
The CM is midstream, assessing the before-and-after approach of change, determining the full-scale impact across the organization, and timing for the impacted stakeholders to learn the new skills and behaviors.
The CL is downstream, collecting the details of content while looking for themes and relevance in order to communicate messages about the change impact, new skills, and preferred behaviors in a way that sets expectations and buy in for the readership (audience). 

If these three roles do not come together, it can mean trouble for the project.

PART 3: Siloed Stakeholders = Organizational Problems

PMs will focus primarily on the needs of the project and not necessarily on the stakeholders, while the CM focuses on the opposite, the needs of the stakeholders. While each role maintains their specific focus, it creates an inherent tunnel vision which could result in siloed work streams. 

The PM looks to stakeholders as a source of information, and providing them resources needed to achieve the goals of the project. They also report project status on what other stakeholders have or have not produced against the timeline and budget. The CM instead looks for how the project can service the needs of the stakeholders. The CL walks the line between both positions, seeking to effectively communicate about the project to the stakeholders in a way that serves both. These three roles could intersect to support stakeholders and help the overall objectives. But often, they are trapped in their tunnel vision: this limits the understanding of each other’s needs, and often conflict arises before the project is implemented. As a result, their stakeholders are not informed as fully as they could or should be.

Example: a PM might block a CM’s attempt to communicate with a particular stakeholder because they are jealously guarding that person’s time (wanting to use it in service to the project) and not appreciating the importance of the CM’s need to acquire key understanding that will aid in adoption of the project's new behavior requirements.

We have explored three areas where the “Stakeholder Problem” is really a problem of relationships across the three roles of Project Manager, Change Manager and Communications Lead. A lack of understanding in this case is tunnel-vision that can cause more risks, delays, and disconnected objectives. The Bridge has three recommendations when any of these issues arise.

PART 1: The Stakeholder Tunnel Vision: Interruption is everything

The solution is to define what, exactly, is meant by the term “stakeholder”, and have everyone agree on the definition, as well as who will own the communications with each group or member. Our advice: use the term “stakeholder”, but keep it broad: it should refer to every person, group or organization needed to make the project happen, and who is impacted by the project -- add more terms to the project lexicon, making sure every group as a name and everyone uses that name when they refer to that group.  Next, everyone should understand the nuances outlined above about how Project Stakeholders (those needed to affect the outcomes) differ from Change Stakeholders (those affected by the outcomes) and from Communication Stakeholders (those who need to be communicated to, and to make the communications happen). Finally, the PM, CM, and CL roles should each have a list of sub-stakeholder groups that are vital to connect all of your stakeholders to meet your objectives. Those groups should have their own names, e.g., working groups, steering committees, review council, communication audience groups, etc.)

PART 2: The Missing Piece: Who did we forget

Taking the established logs and registers, the roles can collaborate on how best to partner and communicate with these stakeholders in appropriate groups or clusters. This will not only confirm the who, what, when to communicate, but confirms the rational behind why. Once a group will be asked to champion the change or support various activities like training, the CM would engage that group with the PM to level set expectations and timing. When it is clear who will be impacted first, the CL can start to plan waves of messages campaigns based on the audience. This is how to streamline the stakeholder relationship most effectively. 

PART 3: Siloed Stakeholders = Organizational Problems 

It is a matter of scheduling the time to work together. Sometimes project teams can build a war room, whereas others have many projects in flight and cannot stay in the same space all day. Regardless of what the project dynamic is, these three roles should have some meeting frequency based on scale, complexity, and impact. The upshot is if each of these roles understand what is important to the others, then it will ease conflict when competing needs arise. 

The solution to the too-narrow mindset is, simply, to expand it, deliberately. If the PM “gets it” about why a CM has different needs out of the same stakeholder group, and recognizes the value to the success of the project, then they are more likely going to work in coordination with rather than in opposition to their partner. Likewise, if a CL grasps how a PM thinks about a stakeholder, they will be more sensitive to ‘bugging’ the stakeholder, perhaps going to the PM or CM for information.

By working with the CM, the PM can help gather champions earlier in the project life cycle, preferably during the planning phase. 

By frequently meeting with the PM, the CM can review the stakeholders log to ensure all influencers are informed appropriately and timely within project communication updates and larger communications scheduled with the Communications lead. Try this template with your team to establish your stakeholders.

Remember that when people use the term “stakeholder” they could be referring to different ideas, so be sure to get clarity. Don’t think of stakeholders as only resources - connect with your colleagues to determine the right stakeholder management plan. And finally, by understanding how each role leverages their stakeholders, organizations can produce more realistic outcomes.