Viewed company-wide, the term stakeholder refers to the set of stakeholders who have a certain expectation of the company. These include customers and shareholders as well as employees, the environment and society. A company that applies stakeholder management methods thus emphasizes its holistic view, self-reflection and sense of responsibility. Does that sound good to you? Would this be a company you would like to be involved in? Then you should also think about integrating stakeholder management into project management!
In our opinion, one thing above all: a real competitive advantage! For this reason you should integrate it into your project management. But more on that later;
let's first get to the definition of Stakeholder Management:
It is clear that the complexity of stakeholder management as a whole is not so easy to explain - but in principle these are suitable examples of the work of stakeholder management.
The definition of stakeholder management has already shown that it is about a holistic, sustainable view. While, for example, shareholder management (shareholders are also stakeholders ...) is aimed entirely at the short-term monetary success of the company, stakeholder management goes further. It takes all stakeholders on board, draws them to the side of the company and aims for long-term quality and brand building. Which, incidentally, ultimately benefits profits and satisfies the shareholders.
Because Stakeholder Management does not focus its methods on just one interest group (such as shareholders), it gives the company greater social relevance and a broader reputation.
We believe that stakeholder management is essential for companies that want to put their success on a solid basis and a broad "fanbase".
Holistic perspective, sustainability, success, fanbase ... You will certainly admit that these are terms that are not only good for a company but also for your project management. And indeed, there are stakeholders in project management whose interests you should keep in mind. Because a stakeholder is not only someone who has a claim on a company - he is also someone who has an influence on the company. For example, the stakeholder group customers, who determine turnover through their purchasing decisions. Suppliers who influence quality through their work. Or employees whose attitude has an impact on service.
Applied to project management in the stakeholder model, this means that project staff are stakeholders who have an influence - positive or negative - on the entire project. The same applies to the clients or the project management. In project management, too, it is therefore important to look out for stakeholders, identify them, weight their importance and initiate appropriate measures. And just as in company-wide stakeholder management, the same applies to stakeholder-based project management: "nurturing" stakeholders is not a short-term measure, but must extend over the entire project duration.
By the way: The stakeholders as project participants are even recorded in a standard - the ISO 21500 "Guide to Project Management".
Projects can be organized, digitized, automated and managed. And yet the most important factor in the often highly complicated structure of a project is probably the human factor. The people in your project can be drivers and breakers; they can move the project forward or speed it up; they can strengthen teamwork or create a bad atmosphere.
And it is this human component that allows you to further optimize the best functioning project management with stakeholder orientation. So here are a few tips for more humanity in stakeholder management:
Stakeholder management is an aspect of project management that requires not only facts and figures - but also soft skills. Finally, see point 4, your projects are primarily about the people involved, their demands and needs. It is all the more helpful if your project management software is able to focus on these people. Just as Can Do demonstrates:
