Effectively Engage with Stakeholders

Stakeholders can be individuals, groups, or organizations that may affect, be affected by, or perceive themselves to be affected by a decision, activity, or outcome of a portfolio, program, or project. Stakeholders also directly or indirectly influence a project, its performance, or outcome in either a positive or negative way.

Stakeholders can affect many aspects of a project, including but not limited to:

• Scope/requirements, by revealing the need to add, adjust, or remove elements of the scope and/or project requirements;
• Schedule, by offering ideas to accelerate delivery or by slowing down or stop delivery of key project activities;
• Cost, by helping to reduce or eliminate planned expenditures or by adding steps, requirements, or restrictions that increase cost or require additional resources;
• Project team, by restricting or enabling access to people with the skills, knowledge, and experience needed to deliver the intended outcomes, and promote a learning culture;
• Plans, by providing information for plans or by advocating for changes to agreed activities and work;
• Outcomes, by enabling or blocking work required for the desired outcomes;
• Culture, by establishing or influencing—or even defining—the level and character of engagement of the project team and broader organization;
• Benefits realization, by generating and identifying long-term goals so that the project delivers the intended identified value;
• Risk, by defining the risk thresholds of the project, as well as participating in subsequent risk management activities;
• Quality, by identifying and requiring quality requirements; and
• Success, by defining success factors and participating in the evaluation of success.

Stakeholders may come and go throughout the life cycle of the project. Additionally, the degree of a stakeholder’s interest, influence, or impact may change over time. Stakeholders, especially those with a high degree of influence and who have an unfavorable or neutral view about a project, need to be effectively engaged so that their interests, concerns, and rights are understood. The project team can then address these concerns through effective engagement and support leading to the probability of a successful project outcome.

Identifying, analyzing, and proactively engaging with stakeholders from the start to the end of the project helps to enable success.

Project teams are a group of stakeholders. This group of stakeholders engages other stakeholders to understand, consider, communicate, and respond to their interests, needs, and opinions.

Effective and efficient engagement and communication include determining how, when, how often, and under what circumstances stakeholders want to be—and should be—engaged. Communication is a key part of engagement; however, engagement delves deeper to include awareness of the ideas of others, assimilation of other perspectives, and collective shaping of a shared solution. Engagement includes building and maintaining solid relationships through frequent, two-way communication. It encourages collaboration through interactive meetings, face-to-face meetings, informal dialogue, and knowledge-sharing activities.

Stakeholder engagement relies heavily on interpersonal skills, including taking initiative, integrity, honesty, collaboration, respect, empathy, and confidence. These skills and attitudes can help everyone adapt to the work and to each other, increasing the likelihood of success.

Engagement helps project teams detect, collect, and evaluate information, data, and opinions. This creates shared understanding and alignment, which enables project outcomes. Additionally, these activities help the project team to tailor the project to identify, adjust, and respond to changing circumstances.

Project teams actively engage other stakeholders throughout the project to minimize potential negative impacts and maximize positive impacts. Stakeholder engagements also enable opportunities for stronger project performance and outcomes in addition to increasing stakeholder satisfaction. Finally, engaging other stakeholders helps the project team to find solutions that may be more acceptable to a broader range of stakeholders.