Chapter 4 - The Human Side of Project Management Flashcards
What is a stakeholder?
Stakeholders are individuals or groups that have a stake or claim in the projects outcome.
How does conducting a stakeholder analysis help the project manager and team understand the informal organization?
Stakeholder analysis helps determine who should be involved in the project and what role they must play.
Why would a project manager not want to make the stakeholder analysis public to the entire organization?
A project manager would not want to take the risk of someone with a stake in the positive outcome of the project being influenced by someone who has a stake in the failure of the project. The stakeholder analysis provides strategies for dealing with particular individuals and managing conflicts, these strategies may no longer be useful if everyone knows about them.
In conducting a stakeholder analysis, why is it important to not only gain from the projects success but also those who will gain from its failure?
It is important to map out all sources of conflict or obstacles for the project. Anticipating conflict between stakeholders may allow time for developing a strategy to manage conflict. Anticipating the negative influence of a particular stakeholder will allow the project manager to work on that stakeholder some more and really let the project manager and team know who in the organization is on their side. (Hopefully the guys with the money).
What is the purpose for defining a role and objective for each stakeholder in the stakeholder analysis?
Defining a clear role and objective for each stakeholder allows the project management leader and team to refer to the stakeholder analysis as a resource to call on if they need a champion, or a consultant, decision make, ally etc. It also allows them to avoid contact with a rival or foe.
