Ch 3&4

Importance of Project Stakeholder Management

• Project stakeholder management involves identifying, planning, managing, and monitoring stakeholder engagement to meet their needs and expectations.

Project Stakeholder Management Processes

• Identifying stakeholders: identifying everyone involved in the project or affected by it, and determining the best ways to manage relationships with them.
• Planning stakeholder management: determining strategies to effectively engage stakeholders.
• Managing stakeholder engagement: communicating and working with project stakeholders to satisfy their needs and expectations, resolving issues, and fostering engagement in project decisions and activities.
• Monitoring stakeholder engagement: monitoring stakeholder relationships and adjusting plans and strategies for engaging stakeholders as needed.

Identifying Stakeholders

• Internal project stakeholders: project sponsor, project team, support staff, internal customers, top management, other functional managers, and other project managers.
• External project stakeholders: project customers (if external), competitors, suppliers, government officials, and concerned citizens.
• Stakeholder register: includes basic information on stakeholders, such as identification, assessment, and classification information.
• Focus on stakeholders with the most direct ties to the project.

Planning Stakeholder Management

• Developing a plan for managing stakeholders after identifying and analyzing them.
• The stakeholder management plan can include: current and desired engagement levels, interrelationships between stakeholders, communication requirements, potential management strategies, and methods for updating the plan.
• The plan should not be part of the official project documents and should be prepared by only a few team members.

Managing Stakeholder Engagement

• Project success is often measured in terms of customer/sponsor satisfaction.
• Project sponsors often rank scope, time, and cost goals in order of importance and provide guidelines on how to balance the triple constraint.
• Understanding stakeholders' expectations can help in managing issues.
• Issues should be documented in an issue log, a tool used to document, monitor, and track issues that need resolution.

Issue Log

• A tool used to document, monitor, and track issues that need resolution.
• Includes information such as issue description, impact, date reported, reported by, assigned to, priority, due date, status, and comments.

Chapter Summary

• Managing stakeholders is the tenth knowledge area in the PMBOK Guide.
• Processes include identifying, planning, managing, and monitoring stakeholder engagement.
• Several types of software can assist in project stakeholder management, and social media can also help in developing relationships with stakeholders.

Project Communications Management

• Failure to communicate is often the greatest threat to project success, especially in IT projects.
• Communication is the oil that keeps a project running smoothly.

Importance of Communication Skills

• Soft skills, including communication skills, are essential for IT project management.
• Good communication is critical to achieving project success.

Planning Project Communications

• A communications management plan should be created for all projects to ensure good communications.
• The plan should vary based on the needs of the project.

Elements of a Communications Management Plan

• Stakeholder communications requirements
• Information to be communicated, including format, content, and level of detail
• Who will receive the information and who will produce it
• Suggested methods or technologies for conveying the information
• Frequency of communication
• Escalation procedures for resolving issues
• Revision procedures for updating the communications management plan
• A glossary of common terminology

Managing Communications

• Distributing project information through formal and informal methods
• Managing communication technologies, media, and performance reporting
• Creating and distributing project information, including technical specifications and status reports

Monitoring Communications

• Assessing how well communications are working
• Identifying and addressing problems with communications
• Using expert judgment, project management information systems, data representation, interpersonal and team skills, and meetings to assess communications.

Running Effective Meetings

• Guidelines to improve time spent at meetings
• Determine if a meeting can be avoided
• Define the purpose and intended outcome of the meeting
• Determine who should attend the meeting
• Provide an agenda to participants before the meeting
• Prepare handouts and visual aids, and make logistical arrangements ahead of time
• Run the meeting professionally
• Set the ground rules for the meeting
• Build relationships

Using Technology Effectively

• Guidelines to use e-mail, instant messaging, texting, and collaborative tools effectively
• Use meaningful subject lines and limit the content of emails to one main subject
• Be clear and concise in emails
• Reread emails before sending
• Limit the number and size of email attachments
• Delete emails that are not needed
• Respond to emails quickly
• File emails appropriately
• Use collaborative tools effectively