Program Stakeholder Engagement

Who Is A Stakeholder?

A party that has an interest in an enterprise or project. The primary stakeholders in a typical corporation are its investors, employees, customers and suppliers. However, modern theory goes beyond this conventional notion to embrace additional stakeholders such as the community, government and trade associations. (Source: Investopedia)

Program Stakeholders are individuals or organizations that are actively involved in the program or whose interest may be positively or negatively affected by the program.

Source: PMI

Stakeholders should be identified, studied, categorized, and tracked. They may be internal or external to the program.

Stakeholders’ expectations can be classified and managed in a manner similar to the approach for identifying and responding to the risks. Program and project managers need to be aware of both stakeholders and risks in order to understand and address the changing environments of the programs and projects. Unlike risks, stakeholders cannot be managed – only stakeholder expectations can be managed.

Why it’s Program Stakeholder Engagement – not Program Stakeholder Management?

Stakeholders have more influence than the program manager, program team, and even the program sponsor – balancing their interests is crucial, considering their potential impact on program benefits realization.

People have a tendency to resist direct management when the relationship is not manager and subordinate. For this reason, most program management literature focuses on the notion of stakeholder engagement rather than stakeholder management.