Identify stakeholders

"Anybody who is affected positively or negatively, by doing a project, or by not doing it, is a stakeholder"

Here is the link to a video of mine, explaining stakeholder management

http://youtu.be/wuZez6JSOaA

In today's global projects, with multi locational teams (thanks to outsourcing, off shoring), stakeholder management (some of them whom you have not met or heard yet), is critical to the success of the project. Here, the first question is 'Who is a stakeholder?'. 'Any one, who is affected positively or negatively, by doing a project, or by not doing a project is a stakeholder of the project'. That is a very sound definition. So, the term stakeholder encompasses a wide spectrum of entities (could be people, organizations, communities, government, political parties, end users, competitors, peers, team members, customer, sponsor, training organizations, analysts, religions, suppliers, contractors...the list could be very vast, and will change from project to project. In my home city, Kochi, the Kochi metro project is happening, and stakeholder management is key for the timely completion of the project. Who  all could be the possible stakeholders for the Kochi metro project?. 

The government of Kerala state 

The central government of India 

The banks who provide the loan

The political parties of Kerala 

The Kochi corporation, where the work is happening

The citizens of Kochi

The vehicle owners of kochi (traffic is going to be interrupted during project execution)

Citizens, whose properties are acquired for the construction of the metro

The suppliers 

The sub contractors 

The customs 

The future passengers 

The design team 

The planning team 

The execution team 

Delhi metro 

Consultants 

Share holders 

Business houses positively impacted 

Business houses negatively impacted 

I am sure that this list is incomplete, because I am not directly involved in this project. 

The key aspect is, before getting into the project, please do spend some time to understand the key stakeholders of the project, and to develop a strategy to deal with them. Some of my training participants get confused between the term sponsor and stakeholder. The stakeholder/stakeholders who fund the project are sponsors. All stakeholders are not sponsors, but a sponsor is definitely a key stakeholder. 

Assignment 

What is the definition of a stakeholder?

List down the stakeholders of one of your projects?

Is the sponsor a stakeholder?

Are all stakeholders, sponsors?