Stakeholder management in the District 4 Warehouse Move project

¶ … stakeholders for the project be identified. In this case, the company is a mid-level concern (around 3,000 employees) spread among four different regions. Since the project is only occurring in district 4, the primary stakeholders will come from that region. One of the main issues is how will the stakeholders communicate during project completion. A stakeholder is defined as "any person or group who has a vested interest in the success of the project, i.e. either provides services to the project, or receives services from the project. A key stakeholder is defined as: A person whose support is critical to the project -- if the support of a key stakeholder were to be withdrawn, the project would fail" (Princeton, 2003). Some of the stakeholders (CEO, VP, and other board officers) will remain at the company headquarters. The people at the site (district manager and employees at the site) will have to communicate with the board on a daily basis regarding status of the project. The initial communications will be held at the company's headquarters and consist of the company management team (CEO, VP, other board members), the district four manager, and representatives from IT, project management and maintenance. The project will start with this direct communication meeting, but during the project most communications will be via electronic means (Princeton, 2003). The key stakeholders can have a meeting once a week via teleconferencing, and the stakeholders at the site will have daily team meetings. A daily progress report can also be generated and emailed to the company headquarters.

Assembling the right team is crucial to the success of the project. The project manager and other stakeholders have already devised a project plan, which includes a timeline and a budget, so this is not a concern. The team has a lead, but there are other areas of responsibility. Determining the major divisions of the project is the first concern (ERPSoftware, 2007). Building the production facility will require various subcontractors to be organized by a contractor. The leads of those trades will be at an initial on site meeting, and then report during the day when they are performing their services. The site contractor and project manager will meet daily. A financial manager will also be needed, but this person can be at the company's main offices. There have to be different team leads that will deal with different aspects of the move and how that will be conducted (ERPSoftware, 2007).

Situational factors can always slow a project (especially one that has a tight timeline, or is concerned with a lot of moving parts such as this one), but they can also be planned for. A situational analysis will first want to determine five major issues that could exist during the construction and move phases of the project. A good situational analysis will first determine the sector that the problem will come from, clearly define the issue, have a meeting with stakeholders to determine possible solutions to the problem, and determine the best solution for the problems that present themselves. Of course, there will be issues that arise that have not been thoroughly vetted during this process, but they can be dealt with as they arise with the same process (UNEP, 2006).