The Importance of Stakeholder Management

Stakeholder Management is an imperative piece to any project’s success. To start, it involves identifying and engaging with the proper individuals to ensure that your project has the resources and oversight it needs to be successful. Maintaining a good relationship with project stakeholders creates a lot of value for your project, as stakeholders typically provide feedback, allocate resources, identify risks, etc.

Some practices that project managers can use to uphold their relationships could be identifying and prioritizing their stakeholders. Some stakeholders will be more influential and hold more interest in the outcome of the project. That being said, those relationships should be the priority for the management efforts. Communicating regularly with stakeholders enables them to be honest about the current state of the project and provide any feedback that is pertinent. The feedback received from stakeholders is some of the most valuable information that any project manager will receive - they should use that information wisely.

Finally, it is important that project managers set realistic goals and expectations. Everyone wants to shoot for the stars, but most of us will fall on a cloud. This is totally acceptable, but the scope of the project should not aim intentions too high or too low as it could damage the relationships with the stakeholders. Should the scope of the project change for any reason, it is the project managers duty to relay that information to every single stakeholder in the project. With all of these efforts, the stakeholders should be enthusiastic and inspired by the project in progress!