Plan the involvement of identified stakeholders.

Stakeholders are identified from all phases of the project lifecycle by identifying the people and functions that need to be represented in the project and describing their relevance and the degree of interaction for project activities. A two-dimensional matrix with stakeholders along one axis and project activities along the other axis is a convenient format for accomplishing this identification. Relevance of the stakeholder to the activity in a particular project phase and the amount of interaction expected would be shown at the intersection of the project phase activity axis and the stakeholder axis.

Stakeholders can include operational users and project participants as well as potential suppliers. When acquiring products that must interoperate with other products, the acquirer plans the involvement of stakeholders from other projects or communities to ensure the delivered product can perform as required in its intended environment. Such planning often includes steps for establishing and maintaining supplier agreements with these stakeholders (e.g., interagency and intercompany agreements, memorandums of understanding, and memorandums of agreement).

For inputs of stakeholders to be useful, careful selection of relevant stakeholders is necessary. For each major activity, identify stakeholders who are affected by the activity and those who have expertise that is needed to conduct the activity. This list of relevant stakeholders will probably change as the project moves through phases of the project lifecycle. It is important, however, to ensure that relevant stakeholders in the latter phases of the lifecycle have early input to requirements and design decisions that affect them.

Implementing this specific practice relies on shared or exchanged information with the previous Plan Needed Knowledge and Skills specific practice.

Typical Work Products

1.    Stakeholder involvement plan