Project stakeholders are persons or entities who have an interest in a given project. According to the

Project Management Institute The Project Management Institute (PMI, legally Project Management Institute, Inc.) is a U.S.-based not-for-profit professional organization for project management. Overview PMI serves more than five million professionals including over 680,0 ...

(PMI), the term ''project stakeholder'' refers to "an individual, group, or organization, who may affect, be affected by, or perceive itself to be affected by a decision, activity, or outcome of a project".

ISO 21500 ISO 21500:2012, Guidance on Project Management, is an international standard developed by the International Organization for Standardization, or ISO starting in 2007 and released in 2012. It was intended to provide generic guidance, explain core pr ...

uses a similar definition. Stakeholders may be located inside or outside an

organization An organization or organisation (Commonwealth English; see spelling differences), is an entity—such as a company, an institution, or an association—comprising one or more people and having a particular purpose. The word is derived fro ...

, including: # the project's sponsor; # those with an interest or the potential to gain from the successful completion of a project; #anyone who may have a positive or negative influence in the project completion.

Example roles

The following are examples of project stakeholders: * Project leader *

Senior management Senior management, executive management, upper management, or a management is generally individuals at the highest level of management of an organization who have the day-to-day tasks of managing that organization—sometimes a company or a corpo ...

* Project team members * Project customer *

Resource Resource refers to all the materials available in our environment which are technologically accessible, economically feasible and culturally sustainable and help us to satisfy our needs and wants. Resources can broadly be classified upon their av ...

managers * Line managers * Product user group * Project testers * Any group impacted by the project as it progresses * Any group impacted by the project when it is completed * Subcontractors to the project * Consultants to the project Rather than focusing on one subset of stakeholders, Lynda Bourne advocates prioritizing all stakeholders and focusing your attention on the "most important" at this point in time. Her view of importance encompasses an assessment of the power, proximity and urgency associated with each stakeholder. She calls her methodology a "Stakeholder Circle". The rationale for this emphasis on decision makers is part of project stakeholder management and a key component in affecting change in an organization. John Hotter describes stakeholder analysis and stakeholder management as essential components of change management.

Example roles

See also

References

Further reading