It is an established fact that stakeholders exercise significant influence on the outcome of projects. Optimizing Stakeholders influence would mean enhancing their positive and minimizing their negative influences; and achieving a state where the sum total of their positive influences is greater than the sum total of their negative influences.

To achieve such a scenario, project organizations would benefit if they develop a Stakeholders Optimization Strategy (SOS), particularly for medium to large scale projects. For the sake of developing an understanding, we define a SOS as “a well-designed approach to mobilize, involve and collaborate with stakeholders for the benefit of project by optimizing their strengths and diminishing their threatening / negative tendencies.”

3D-R process for designing SOS:

To design a good SOS, we recommend 3D-R process: Document, Draw, Develop, Refine.  Below we discuss some of the key considerations for each of the process steps.

1. Document stakeholders

The development of a good SOS would largely depend on how accurate or useful the Stakeholders list is? and how well their information is documented? Or in other words, if the Stakeholder register is complete and inclusive having all the useful information about the stakeholders. If the Stakeholders list / register is defective or incomplete, it will be very hard if not impossible to come up with a solid SOS.

A good Stakeholder list / register can be constructed by considering who could be involved at various stages in the project. Thinking about a project by breaking down project in stages will be very helpful to brainstorm all the relevant stakeholders with their possible interest, power, influence, threatening tendencies and involvement at each stage of the project.

2. Draw a 3-dimensional matrix

It is useful to plot up a 3-dimensional matrix to understand stakeholders’ personas and build a good SOS. This matrix can be plotted on two-dimensions originally such as interest vs. influence, interest vs. power or involvement vs power or any other configuration.

Whichever matrix is plotted, the matrix should show position of each stakeholder on the basis of weighted strength of importance represented by confluence of values for two original dimensions, such as interest and influence or interest and power, or any other configuration.

Having this 3-dimensional matrix will give a fair idea of Stakeholders’ potential of help versus harm and the strength of possibility of them helping the project.

3. Develop optimization strategies

This step involves understanding strengths versus threatening / negative tendencies to optimize stakeholders’ usefulness for the project. Strategies should be chalked out to maximize their strengths and minimize the impact of negative tendencies.

For instance, a procurement contractor’s technical knowledge about the supplies that the contractor is making could be a strength that could be optimized for the benefit of project work. Whereas, threatening tendencies of the contractor such as supplying low quality or late supplies need to be minimized by signing a performance bond or having contractual terms that diminish such negative tendencies.

The importance dimension as discussed at step 2 in the process will be very helpful in developing relevant and effective strategies. For instance, a stakeholder with low influence and interest would be ranked low on importance dimension and hence may not necessitate development of a specific strategy, unless his/her influence-interest value position changes over course of project.

4. Refine and revise SOS

A SOS is not a static document. It needs to be constantly refined and revised for changes in stakeholders’ position vis-à-vis their influence, involvement, power or threatening tendencies.  In addition, the changes in stakeholders’ position may necessitate changes to stakeholders optimization strategies. Therefore, a regular refining and updating of SOS is needed to reflect the current situation of stakeholders on the project.

Concluding thoughts:

Given the temporary or short-lived nature of projects, every project has its own stakeholders’ eco-system. This means for each project, one needs to manage new set of people and take them along to achieve the project objectives.

3D-R process approach provides a basic formula to design strategies and deal with people within the stakeholders’ eco-system for the project and enhance chances of project success. Key thing about 3D-R approach is that it is simple to use and provides a raod-map to handle complexities involved in stakeholder’s engagement and management.