Lesson 08: Stakeholders engagement

Video edition: en

Subtitle: NoneEN

00:05 - In this lesson, I’m going to really focus on Stakeholders, but from a high level point of view
00:12 - So, let me start with a simple definition of what a stakeholder is first
00:17 - So, a stakeholder in a project is someone, an individual person or a group, that has interest in the project
00:26 - And we should be aware of who the different stakeholders are
00:31 - So, they can be affected by the project or they can affect the project, so either way
00:37 - And these can include investment people, team members, clients, users and so on.
00:44 - Okay. So, there are different kinds of stakeholders
00:47 - And in general project management, we think of internal to the project and external to the project
00:55 - So, internal stakeholders are individuals or a group within the organization
01:00 - So, they can have direct influence on the project
01:06 - So, an example from the solar panel project we discussed in the previous lesson
01:11 - So, we’d have the project managers, the team members, the facility staff, the finance staff and so on
01:19 - Then what about external stakeholders?
01:22 - Well, these could be individuals or a group outside the organization
01:27 - So, they can also have an impact or they can be impacted by the project
01:33 - So, for example, the local government office for the licensing agreement
01:37 - The local companies in the area because now they will see the solar panels on top
01:44 - Maybe an insurance company, energy company and so on
01:48 - Okay. Now let’s look at what we mean by gathering an overview of the stakeholders
01:57 - And here I’d like to talk about the concept of creating a stakeholder mind map, okay
02:03 - And that gives you a good overview on what the different stakeholders are and how they relate to each other
02:10 - Now in the book the PMBOK.Guide
02:14 - It gives a very good indication or good information on using a mind map
02:20 - To do this type of overview of all your different stakeholders
02:24 - And it’s really good then for the Project Manager to be able to show this to other people in the project
02:29 - So we’ll all have a better overview on who the different stakeholders are
02:34 - Once you identify these stakeholders, then you should try to figure out how to communicate with them
02:41 - Because the quicker you hear about concerns, the much better
02:46 - The much easier it is for the Project Manager then to take action on those
02:51 - Because hearing about concerns later in the project can be expensive
02:54 - But if it’s early, it can have a lot of value
02:57 - And we also want to make these people aware that the project is starting and what the project is about
03:03 - Let me give you an example
03:06 - So, let’s say we have a new website project being built
03:09 - And this new website is going to gather information about people for about 40,000 users. Okay?
03:16 - So, you just keep your communication within a small environment
03:20 - As little a group of stakeholders as possible and so you’re saving this information
03:28 - After about six months, the website is live, already 38,000 people have registered
03:33 - But someone from the legal department finds out about the project and says
03:37 - “Hold on. According to law, like GDPR policies, you cannot save this information here in the project”
03:47 - Now you got to do something about it
03:49 - So, you’ve got maybe two to three months rework in order to fix this
03:54 - In order to comply with the law, so this is all rework
03:59 - So, if you’d made those people aware about your project from the beginning, you could have saved all of this rework
04:05 - So, it’s a good idea. Please don’t be afraid to tell the world about your project within your organization
04:10 - That is going to start up. Okay?
04:13 - If you’re working for the Secret Service, of course, then don’t tell anybody
04:17 - But most of the time, tell people
04:20 - I want to give you a bit more information about internal stakeholders
04:24 - So, having a good team for the project is really key and they get along with each other
04:32 - How can you get support to make sure you have the right people on the project?
04:37 - Well, as a Project Manager, you are trying to facilitate the project and attract people to the project
04:43 - So, you basically have to ask more senior people in the organization
04:48 - So, you have that role, which is the sponsor role. PRINCE2 calls it Project Executive
04:53 - So, that’s the main role that you should be working with first
04:56 - Then you have a high-level person that represents the users
04:59 - And probably a high-level person that represents the suppliers
05:03 - So, you can also ask them, “Okay. Who do you think should be in this project and why?”
05:10 - Alright. And keep asking them until you get it, and if people don’t come in
05:15 - Then go back to these people and keep insisting that you need these extra people in the organization, in the project
05:23 - One of the principles which are mentioned in PRINCE2 is the following
05:28 - It’s called defined roles and responsibilities and relationships, so this is all about people
05:36 - And it’s really good to have defined roles so people will know what to expect from themselves
05:41 - But also what to expect from each other
05:44 - And the relationships is all about understanding the relationships between the different stakeholders
05:50 - And then we can figure out, okay, if certain …
05:54 - If some of these relationships need to be improved or not and then do it
05:59 - I don’t like to introduce too many new words here, too many terms in this second iteration of the training
06:07 - But I am going to mention Ecosystem
06:10 - So, let me start with a general overview of what ecosystem is
06:13 - So, the first time I heard about this was when I did biology. So, what is an Ecosystem?
06:17 - It’s a community of living organisms and their interactions in an environment
06:24 - So, PRINCE2 has taken that word “ecosystem” and it says
06:28 - Okay, there is a project ecosystem and an organizational ecosystem
06:34 - So, now let me explain that to you
06:37 - So it says a project ecosystem includes all parts of the business that are affected by the project
06:44 - As well as the people and the companies that use or provide the things for the project
06:50 - So, it’s basically everybody impacted or can impact the project, they’re really tied to the project
06:57 - And then an organizational system is completely wide
07:01 - It’s like a big family with cousins and third cousins that can include lots of other people
07:07 - Even people working outside the organization
07:11 - Let’s say even competitors, customers for other projects or other departments that were done
07:18 - Other partners and so on. So, it’s really, really wide
07:22 - But of course, from a project point of view, we are really focused on the project ecosystem
07:30 - PRINCE2 for a number of years has been talking about there are three project interests in a project
07:40 - So one should … let’s call them three big hats
07:44 - One is a hat to wear for a business point of view
07:49 - So, that’s somebody who should be thinking about the value for money
07:53 - One hat from a user point of view. That hat should be thinking about
07:58 - “Hey, are we able to use what’s being produced by the project?”
08:03 - And another hat would be to represent the people who have to create the product
08:09 - Whether it’s IT development skills or whether it’s a building or something like that
08:13 - So, it’s their hat as well, and it says these are three project interests that have to be in every project
08:20 - We must keep them in every project. Okay
08:24 - I will come back to this in a moment, actually I’ll do it now
08:29 - I want to give you an overview of the different roles in a PRINCE2 project
08:33 - But without getting too technical, so let’s see how this goes
08:37 - So, the first hat I just mentioned, it was that business hat
08:41 - And PRINCE2 calls that the Project Executive, which I’ve mentioned already, but sponsor is also another name
08:48 - So, they’re always asking, why, what’s the justification for the project, and they keep their business hat on
08:54 - Then we’ve got someone who represents the users, one of the three project interests
08:59 - And so they’re always asking, well, will the product be used, be able to use as expected? Okay
09:05 - So, who can that be in an organization?
09:08 - Well, let’s say if we are creating a new sales application for a sales department
09:12 - Then the sales manager would be definitely one of those people who represents the users
09:19 - And they may have two or three people, maybe two, who knows all the sales processes within that department
09:26 - So they will also form part of a representation team for that department
09:32 - And PRINCE2 calls that the Senior User. Okay? So it can be more than one person
09:38 - And then from a technical point of view
09:41 - Well, maybe we’ve got different types of technology in what we’re trying to do
09:45 - So, we’ll have different, maybe three or four people representing the different companies that will deliver
09:51 - The skills and the know-how and the techniques to create something
09:55 - So, those people together, we call them the Supplier Representatives
09:59 - But we can group them in, the heads of that, and we call them the Senior Supplier, that’s where the word comes from
10:05 - So, they’re a group of representatives who represent the supplier
10:09 - Who represent the users, and we’ve got always one person who represents the business. That’s it
10:16 - Then we have a person who facilitates the project, manages the project, and leads the project
10:22 - And we call that the Project Manager. They’re usually very nice people
10:27 - Then we have a role for administrating the project
10:32 - So, all the admin, all the documentation, keeping an overview of how things are, the documents are
10:38 - Keeping data up-to-date in the central system and so on. So, those are really all the admin tasks
10:43 - And PRINCE2 calls that Project Support because it supports the project
10:49 - And then we have the teams and each team will have its own leader
10:54 - Which they can act as the person the project manager talks to because you have to speak to a team
10:59 - They cannot talk to a team of 11 people, everyone individually
11:03 - It’s better off that each team has one spokesperson for that time
11:07 - And the Project Manager has a one-to-one conversation with them
11:11 - That makes it easier to work with and to do reporting and to pass on instructions, let’s say
11:16 - So, we call that the Team Manager and they work with what we call team members
11:22 - Alright, now in Appendix B of the PRINCE2 manual
11:26 - It has a complete section which describes all of the roles
11:30 - But we will discuss that later within the project as well
11:35 - There are just two more things I want to touch on here on a very high point of view
11:39 - One of them is Culture. So, you’ve often heard about a country having a certain culture
11:44 - Well, a project has a certain culture as well, and when a project starts up
11:49 - Of course, it’s going to inherit the culture from its surroundings, so from the organization itself
11:56 - But part of what the Project Manager does is try to build a better team working together
12:02 - So they’ll automatically begin to change the culture of that team, whether they like it or not, you know
12:08 - And hopefully they are changing it for the better
12:11 - How would a Project Manager know, how could they be able to rate their own culture or to check on it?
12:19 - Well, they can ask some basic questions like how open are team members to learn
12:25 - That’s about the whole psychology of the people, the frame of mind of those people
12:29 - If they have a willingness to learn new skills, then you know that they’re going to adapt very quickly to the project
12:36 - Are they good at sharing knowledge? Hopefully they are
12:39 - Because that really then bonds the team because people can start learning from each other
12:44 - If they’re very protective of their knowledge, that’s going to really affect the culture. We’ll have a bad project culture
12:50 - And the other one is when we come up to a problem, does actually the team work together to solve the problem
12:57 - Or does one person say, “No, I get it. I will solve the problem. That’s it. You all keep away. I will give it to you.”
13:02 - That won’t be good either. So, we have a shared experience when we try to solve problems as well
13:07 - So, that’s all about Culture. That’s an intro … sorry, that’s an introduction to culture
13:13 - And now Leadership. PRINCE2 talks a lot about Leadership at the beginning of its manual
13:20 - So, a Project Manager actually does quite a number of things
13:25 - They facilitate the project, they lead the project and they manage the project
13:29 - So, use those three, but PRINCE2 mainly says it leads and manages
13:34 - I use the word facilitate a lot because that’s my favourite way of describing what a Project Manager can do
13:41 - So Leadership, what is it then? It’s about the ability to inspire and guide a team
13:48 - They can do that by setting a clear vision and direction of what to do
13:53 - And then getting everybody online in the team to actually go in that direction
13:59 - Okay. So, they really will help people to be self-motivated and to move them
14:04 - Right, I think that was a good introduction to Stakeholders
14:07 - You now have a better idea on some of the concepts we introduced
14:12 - And staying as high as possible without going into too much detail

Quiz

What is a stakeholder?
Can stakeholders be internal and external to the project?
Why is it a good idea to notify stakeholders about the project near the beginning of the project?
What do stakeholder analysis and communication have in common?
Which PRINCE2 role is responsible for the project?
Which role represents the interests of the people with the skills and knowledge to deliver the project products?
What are shared attitudes, values, and goals?
What is the ability of a PM to inspire and guide a project team and set a clear vision and direction?