Stakeholder analysis and categorization in project initiation

Stakeholder

Area of Interest

Attitude (+ or -)

Power (+ or _)

Interest (+ or -)

Stakeholder Type

CEO Overall profitability + + - Sleeping Giant

VP, Ops Overall performance + + - Sleeping Giant

Regional Director Regional perf. + + + Savior

Other managers How the project + / - + - Irritants affects them.

Employees How the project - + + Saboteurs

affects them

Suppliers Their revenue - / + -- Irritants

VP, Compliance - + + Saboteur?

Finance Dept Funding good projects - + + Savior or Saboteur

Stakeholder analysis should be conducted in order to better understand how the different stakeholders will respond to a new project proposal. There are many interests within an organization, and they can play different roles with any new project, usually related to the impact that the project will have on their interests. By identifying stakeholders, the organization can allow those planning the project to anticipate problems, to gather support for the project, and to line up knowledge, funding and other key organizational resources before the project has been commenced (Schmeer, 2015 ).

Thus, stakeholder analysis one of the key steps in project preparation. Projects feature unknowns, and because of that there can be differences in the way that different stakeholders interpret the project, and these interpretations can affect the level of support a project receives throughout the organization. It is important, therefore, to evaluate the interests of the different organizational stakeholders, and then to be able to relate those interests to the project, in order to better understand the expected reactions of the different stakeholders (Elias, Cavana & Jackson, 2002).

The stakeholder analysis can also affect the way a project is envisioned. A project can be tailored to the interests of specific critical stakeholders, or adjusted to better meet the needs of more stakeholders. A formal stakeholder management process begins with a structure analysis of stakeholder interests and alignments, as the above example illustrates (Olander, 2007). But this analysis is just the beginning of the stakeholder management process. While it is an important part of this process, the initial stakeholder analysis does establish a base framework for at least identifying who the relevant stakeholders are and how they might view the proposed project.

Defining the size of a project is challenging, but a necessary part of the planning process, because the size of the project determines the resources that the project will need. The company needs to have a sense of whether it has the resources, what resources it might need to acquire, and whether the project justifies the cost of acquiring these resources. The entire financial plan of the project requires a realistic estimate of the project's size. The size of the project is not necessarily easy to determine, however. If it is a new project or business, then the potential market and achievable share of market can help to define the size of the project.