Using a Power Influence Grid to Select Stakeholders

The purpose of an overview meeting is for the project manager to identify and introduce the primary stakeholders and provide an overview of a project to all stakeholders. A stakeholder is anyone with a vested interest in the project and whose interests are affected by the project. Identifying stakeholders early on is an important part of the project communications process, disagreements between them can lead to conflicting directions and poor resource allocation, therefore their needs and expectations can affect the success of the project, (Shtub, Bard, & Globerson, 2005). Stakeholders include the project manager and the project team, the project sponsor, its internal and external end users, the organization’s functional managers, and the organization’s suppliers.

It is important to identify key stakeholders and any representatives from these groups forming the project management team should be introduced at the overview meeting so that stakeholders can be assured their needs are being met by an appropriate individual. In addition to the project manager and sponsor, key stakeholders for the project would include product development, product manufacturing, product distribution, sales, and marketing. Although external end users are stakeholders, project team members from sales and marketing are expected to communicate with them so they would not be invited to the overview meeting to avoid any future conflicts that might arise from expectations generated at this meeting. Additionally, supplier stakeholders would receive communications from project team members from manufacturing and would not be invited to this overview meeting for similar reasons.

The PMI PMBOK Guide suggests utilizing a Power/Influence Grid as one method of identifying and prioritizing stakeholders, this method is based upon their level of authority and influence over the project’s outcomes, (2008, Figure 10-4). Stakeholders and their corresponding levels of influence and authority, identified only as high or low, have been included on the table below; those stakeholders with a high level of influence are those who enable the project, while those with a high level of power can disable the project if it is underperforming. Any stakeholders with either high influence or power, represented in Quadrants 1 and 4, should be invited to the kick-off meeting. Those stakeholders with both high influence and power, (Quadrant 2), should be introduced to the other stakeholders as the project management team. As projects are dynamic and those stakeholders with low influence and low power can neither enable nor disable the project, inviting them to the kick-off meeting is unnecessary and could potentially lead to impracticable expectations on deliverables.

Power Influence Grid with Stakeholders

A. Project Sponsor (A)

B. Senior Managers (B)

C. Program Managers (C)

D. Software/Hardware Developers (D)

E. Project Management Office including Project Auditors (E)

F. Project Manager and Project Team (F)

G. Functional Managers (G)

H. Operational Managers (H)

I. Internal Customers (I)

J. Business Partners including Lenders (J)

K. External Customers (K)

L. Suppliers (L)

M. Government Regulatory Body (M)

N. Competitors (N)



References:
PMI, (2008). A guide to the project management body of knowledge (PMBOK guide) (4th ed.). Newtown Square, PA: Project Management Institute, Inc.

Shtub, A., Bard, J., & Globerson, S. (2005). Project management: processes, methodologies, and economics (2nd ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson.