To help you prepare for the PMP exam, we are publishing a series of articles on PMP topics. This article will help you identify project stakeholders.
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We are now trying to start our project. We have been granted the authority to do so by the Project Charter. Without knowing who our stakeholders are, a project cannot start. It is crucial to the success and longevity of a project that we identify the stakeholders at the beginning. PMP has a process called ‘Identifying Stakeholders’ as part of its Initiating process group’ (one among the five process groups of PMP).

If we think we are doing everything right, but our stakeholders are unhappy, we can’t call the project a success. Leaders should consider all stakeholders as part of the project. Therefore, they should not be afraid to influence anyone. To do that, we need to first identify our Stakeholders. Or, who are the Stakeholders?
According to PMBOK 5th edition, a stakeholder is an individual, group, or organization that may affect, feel affected by, or perceive itself to be affected, by a decision, activity, or outcome of a project (Std. Def).
Therefore, Stakeholder can be defined as anyone who is affected by our project or who can influence it or has expectations about our project. A stakeholder can be the sponsor, board member, or a member of the team. It can also be the project manager. Every stakeholder in a project is affected when it begins. This applies to everyone, regardless of their rank in the hierarchy. Everybody involved becomes a stakeholder.
How do you identify the stakeholders?
How do we identify the Stakeholders? And if everyone is a stakeholder, do we need to treat all of them on the same scale? This is what the identification of the stakeholder addresses:
How do I source information about stakeholders?
How can you act upon the information about stakeholders?
How do you document the information about Stakeholders
Inputs
Project Charter – The Project Charter documents the authority for the Project Manager. It also lists the Key Stakeholders, which includes the Sponsor, Senior Management, and consulting management. If the project requires the outsourcing of work, services, or products, the charter will serve as the source for Procurement and Contract information.
Procurement Documents – In addition to the Charter and the Charter, the other procurement documents can also be a great source of information for third party stakeholders. These stakeholders may not be key stakeholders, but they are lower down in the hierarchy.
Enterprise Environmental factors (EEF). We all know that EEF is a measure of how regulations, standards, compliance, market status, human resources capabilities, and organizational structure affect the project. The project’s environment. EEF uses the organizational structure as a key input to identify key stakeholders on a hierarchical basis. It provides insight into who has the most influence on the project.
Organizational Process Assets – OPA is the repository for project documentations from past project, lessons learned from past project, templates of forms/reports, other documentation, intranet site information, policies, and standards. It can be used as a reference point for any other project in the organization. To ensure we are on the right path, we could use the Stakeholder Analysis data from past projects as well as the Stakeholder Register template.
Tools and Techniques
Stakeholder Analysis – As it sounds, analysing all information from Identifying Stakeholder will allow us to understand which stakeholder can positively or negatively influence the project. We must begin to record the role of each individual, their interests, their influence, and their expectations against the list of all stakeholders. To identify the expectations and interests of all stakeholders, we could use the interviewing method. This could reveal additional stakeholders. We could also address the concerns of our stakeholders and make plans to address them. This is how we can turn a negative stakeholder in to a positive one.
Once we have all the details, we can use them to classify stakeholders based on their support, influence and interests. It is useful to group stakeholders together because they are likely to share similar interests and needs.
A 2 is the most popular and effective way to do it.