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Phase Zero

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Identify Key Stakeholders

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In order to understand who should be consulted, we need to identify the key stakeholders. Key stakeholders are those people who will feel the impact of the proposed change. Those impacts may be positive or negative or even a mixture of both. Impacts relate to undertaking the project, and also the outcome of the project.
  • Concept Paper
    1. Review the stakeholders from the Concept Paper
    2. Discuss with involved parties to identify other stakeholders
    3. During the interviews, probe the interviewees for other stakeholders
    4. Identify the importance and support for the project during interviews
    5. Complete the Preliminary Stakeholder Mapping document
  • Preliminary Stakeholder Mapping document

The success of a project can be highly influenced by the support or otherwise of key stakeholders. If you don't get the support from the key stakeholders, you run a significant risk of the project falling apart. Other priorities cause people to be diverted from the project for days, or often completely removed. Major issues are never addressed. The project doesn't get its share of 'brain space' from decision makers.

After identifying stakeholders, they need to be categorised in two dimensions.

  • Importance to the project
  • Support for the project

By mapping these two dimensions, you can understand their likely impact on the project. If someone who is critically important to the project is totally opposed to the project, the likelihood of a failure is high. The issue needs to be addressed before work is undertaken.

The attached template has instructions for doing a stakeholder analysis. Questions can be asked through the interview to establish the importance and supportiveness of each stakeholder

Preliminary Stakeholder Mapping A document to identify who are stakeholders, why they are stakeholders, how important they are to the project, and their level of support.
Key Stakeholders This white paper talks about mapping key stakeholders enthusiasm for the project against their importance to the project

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