Blogs on Operations & Data Science

Introduction While researching project management concepts, you must have come across these two terms, stakeholder engagement and stakeholder management. While they are similar-sounding, they are actually very different, as project management professional Michelle Bartonico explains later on. Read this blog to understand the difference between these two terms and why they’re equally important for an organization.   Difference between stakeholder engagement and stakeholder management “A stakeholder is anyone who has some sort of stake in a project,” explains Michelle Bartonico, PMP, in the second episode of the Vibrant Publishers’ Podcast titled Empowering Success Through Stakeholder Engagement. “Anyone who has a stake wants to feel engaged at whatever portion or part of the project that makes sense to them.” While not technically different from stakeholder management, understanding the difference in the two is important for project managers. Managers have to successfully engage and interact with stakeholders, keeping them in the loop about the progress of the project, while on the other hand, managers have to maintain control over stakeholders that impact the project outcome. Here, there is a shift in attitude.   While the two terms are not technically different, the purpose and approach towards stakeholders will significantly impact the project outcome. When stakeholder engagement comes into play In the previous blog, Why Stakeholder Engagement is Crucial for Project Success, we saw how good project engagement is all about engaging the right stakeholders and maintaining meaningful relations with them. Michelle Bartonico talks about this in her book, Stakeholder Engagement Essentials You Always Wanted To Know. She defines the difference between engagement and management as follows: “Contrary to someone feeling “managed,” when people are engaged, they are motivated, participatory, and more likely to be a resource.” Stakeholder engagement, therefore, is for empowering people and adding value to the project through participatory efforts. There are situations where engagement is needed and situations when managing stakeholders is needed.   When stakeholder management is needed Management comes into play in the case of stakeholders who have a direct impact on the outcome of a project, such as employees and project teams. There are five phases of project management, and stakeholders are involved in all of these phases, right from project initiation to completion. To understand the fine line between engaging and managing a stakeholder, you need to look at what the role of the stakeholder is. The stakeholder can be a simple “advocate”, “critic”, or “neutral”. Assessing where your stakeholders lie on the spectrum of stakeholder status can help to define whether an engagement or a management approach will work best.   You’ve categorized your stakeholders. Now what? The primary difference between engagement and management is—communication! As we discussed earlier, some stakeholders like investors and senior management may benefit from a more “engaged” approach, while others like vendors or employees are best “managed”. How you communicate with each of these stakeholders, then, will be shaped by which approach you use while dealing with them. The core principles of communication with stakeholders remain the same: focus on building interpersonal relationships and leverage what each stakeholder has to offer in the lifecycle of the project.   Conclusion In this blog, we discussed why it’s important to know when to engage and when to manage stakeholders. The difference lies primarily in the contribution each stakeholder provides in the project workflow. Knowing the difference can help streamline project operations. In the next blog, we will talk about the key skills you require to become a successful project manager. Listen to the full podcast on Spotify.com or check it out on YouTube. Read the next blog in this series here.  

Introduction In this blog, we’ll discuss the A-Z’s of stakeholder engagement, including its importance, why it’s crucial for any company, and what are the ways one can go about engaging stakeholders. If you’re new to the world of project management and want a quick and easy introduction to the concept and practice of stakeholder engagement, read on.   Firstly–what is stakeholder engagement? Think of stakeholders as entities that either impact an organization or are impacted by its activities in some manner. This can include investors, shareholders, employees, and of course, customers. Stakeholder engagement is a vital part of project management. Veteran marketer and project management professional Michelle Bartonico says that stakeholder engagement is “engaging the right people at the right time and helping them become champions of what [your organization] is trying to achieve.” Stakeholder engagement is, then, a process of collaboration and interaction, ensuring that the organization has the right people onboard to achieve the collective goals.   Why are stakeholders so important? Stakeholder engagement makes all the difference between a good project and an outstanding one, the latter adding value to all the stakeholders involved in the process. A project cannot be completed successfully without adding the inputs of multiple stakeholders at multiple checkpoints during the project process. Stakeholders are present during every stage of a project. Without the right stakeholders, a project will feel more like a list of items to be checked off rather than a process that adds value towards an end goal.   How do you engage stakeholders successfully? In order to successfully engage stakeholders, project managers must be “people-centric”. Being people-centric means approaching stakeholder engagement not as a means to an end but as a way to develop meaningful interpersonal relationships. The first step is identifying the right stakeholders, of course, and then understanding how to map out and analyze the impact that each stakeholder will have on the project in question. In her book, Michelle Bartonico explains that “a project’s destiny” is determined by how well the project manager is able to engage stakeholders. The key to winning over the right stakeholders is mapping out what each stakeholder can contribute and then planning how to remain connected with them at every stage of the project process.   What stakeholder engagement isn’t There is a common misconception that only one particular group of stakeholders is impacted by the project's outcome. However, that is not true. Multiple stakeholders are significantly impacted; whether they are supply chain managers or IT professionals. Michelle Bartonico states that the project outcome is based on “a collaboration between all levels”. Thus, while planning for stakeholder engagement, it is important to remember that every individual involved in contributing to the project—whether directly or indirectly—has their own role to play.   Conclusion Stakeholder engagement is crucial for project success because it gets the project going and helps keep track of who’s doing what. A project cannot be initiated without identifying relevant stakeholders. For a project management professional, project manager, or even a learner curious about the topic, knowing what this concept entails is essential for ensuring all-round project success. In our next blog, we look at the difference between the terms stakeholder engagement and stakeholder management. Listen to the full podcast on Spotify or check it out on YouTube. Read the next blog in this series here.    

Stakeholder Management, also referred to as Stakeholder Engagement, is the heart of project management. Yet, Stakeholder Management is the area of project management that is often overlooked, underestimated, or mismanaged entirely.     Before diving into Stakeholder Management, let’s define a “stakeholder.” According to the Project Management Book of Knowledge (PMBOK), “ a stakeholder is an individual, group, or organization who may affect, be affected by, or perceive itself to be affected by a decision, activity, or outcome of a project.”     In the above definition, it's apparent that people are the thread throughout any project. This makes the Stakeholder Management Knowledge Area one of the most dynamic in project management.     There are five phases of project management, (figure 1). Stakeholders are present in each phase - from initiating the project to performing the work to feeling the impact of the project’s outcomes.     (Source:https://pmstudycircle.com/stakeholders-in-project-management-definition-and-types)         Specifically, in Stakeholder Management, there are four processes the Project Manager and teams should follow.       Stakeholders are dynamic and ever-changing so it is imperative to know what the four stakeholder management processes are and where they dock within the five project phases. This is critical so Project Managers maintain sight of the team’s progress in a project and know the other Knowledge Area processes to apply.     Think of these life cycle processes as a relay race. The success of each one depends on the accuracy and careful handoff from the previous step. Whether small, large, or enterprise-wide in scale, the Project Initiation Phase is the time to begin identifying stakeholders.     Step 1: Identify Stakeholders - Here, the Project Manager generates and analyzes a list of people who have an interest or influence on the project outcome. The stakeholders' attitudes (positive, negative, neutral) are also assessed. This initial step helps determine stakeholder engagement strategies, clarifies roles, and serves as the building blocks for the stakeholder management plan.   (Source: https://www.smartsheet.com/blog/demystifying-5-phases-project-management)     Step 2: Create the Stakeholder Management plan - Also referred to as the Stakeholder Engagement Plan, this is the playbook for how the Project Manager and the project team will engage with stakeholders, communicate, and mitigate issues that could create a lack of support or buy-in for the project.     Step 3: Manage the plan - It refers to the management of the stakeholder plan. This step is ongoing because people’s behavior is fluid throughout any project. In this step, stakeholders are consulted on whether expectations are being met, their attitudes toward the project are assessed, and the stakeholder plan is updated as needed.     Step 4: Monitor the stakeholder management plan - Once the stakeholder plan is in place, it is at regular intervals that the effectiveness of the plan is reviewed. In the PMBOK, this step is part of the Monitoring and Controlling process group and it is a time when the Project Manager is deliberate about logging any issues, adding to a lesson learned register, and noting any adjustments to foundational documents, e.g., Stakeholder Register and Communications plan.     Table 1: Stakeholder Management Processes in Each Phase     Acquiring an understanding and practical knowledge of stakeholder engagement is something that any professional - regardless of their industry, years of experience, or position in an organization - can benefit from.     It's essential to know how to anticipate, monitor, and engage people throughout the life cycle of a project and beyond.     Releasing in January 2023 is Stakeholder Management Essentials. This book will be added to Vibrant Publisher’s Self-Learning Management series. The Self-Learning Management Series provides a jump start to working professionals, where their job roles demand the knowledge and skills imparted in a business school. On the heels of Project Management Essentials, Stakeholder Management Essentials takes a deep drive into stakeholder engagement.     In Stakeholder Management Essentials, readers will explore how to balance the tenets of project management with the realities of human dynamics. This book provides both foundational essentials of Stakeholder Management along with practical techniques and tools to successfully navigate projects and relationships with people in an organization. Readers can apply what they learn anytime they need to move a project, a conversation, or an initiative forward.     Key learning objectives also include Understanding the fundamentals of managing stakeholders Helpful approaches and strategies to use How to build a Stakeholder Management plan Responding to stakeholder scenarios.   By the end of Stakeholder Management Essentials, readers will have the tools and a people-first orientation that makes project success…on the horizon.  

It’s not you, it’s me. Stakeholder management realities we must acknowledge.   Remember that time you had a client that nearly made you apocalyptic? You know, the one who offered vague project goals, endlessly changed their mind, and provided inputs after the deadline. Or the time when your project team wound up with “too many cooks in the kitchen?” If you’ve worked as a project manager, you’ve undoubtedly encountered at least one of these scenarios.   How did this happen? I found myself asking this question repeatedly, especially when I worked in the Account Service at marketing and advertising agencies. I’d be assigned a client, review the original business development RFP and pitch, be provided a core project team based on anticipated scope, then host a kickoff/discovery meeting. Everything would kick off “by the book,” then BAM! Confusion, frustration, misaligned expectations. In my experience, this usually occurs during the Execution phase when it is time to actually produce the deliverables, but it can happen anytime (and multiple times) throughout a project. Before you meet your team at the water cooler to grumble about your nightmare client, take a breath. I’ve found that many times when I instinctively wanted to blame my client for project dysfunction, it was something I could have managed more closely, lessened the severity of, or perhaps even avoided altogether.Here are some crucial artifacts that need to be a touchstone for your projects. These will help you manage expectations and create transparency about roles and responsibilities.   These can sometimes seem like a grind getting everyone onboard, but trust me — these will save you some headaches and provide an objective reference document as you navigate stakeholder management. Don’t forget to return to these documents throughout your project to revalidate accuracy and to ensure everyone remains on the same wavelength. Templates linked below. Project charter Stakeholder matrix (Another tool for more ongoing analysis is Airtable. It’s user-friendly and syncs with Asana.) Meeting agenda Asana (Project management tool I strongly recommend. This is also the tool used throughout the Google Project Management Certificate courses). Here’s the reality: Stakeholder management is tough! It’s nuanced and dependent not only on relationships and connections, but also on trust, expertise, and individual stakeholder agendas. Keep learning and try to stay in the mindset of improvement rather than blame others (this is easier said than done)!   Intrigued about the organized world of Project Management? Now that your interest in project management is piqued, your next question might be: Where can I learn about project management? If you’re a project manager or a team leader who’s facing such issues, you might want to know about the world of project management where similar problems exist—and are solved. We can help with that. Project Management Essentials You Always Wanted To Know equips employees transitioning into project management roles with the essential information they need to handle major, large-scale projects. You’ll learn how to plan and initiate projects using the WBS system and how to successfully execute them, with a final project closure at the end. Don’t worry if you’ve not heard of these terms and are feeling overwhelmed by their seeming complexity—just read this book to find out everything you need to know about Project Management.