We have all been on projects where understanding different stakeholder groups becomes a 'touchy-feely' feeling.  You have a gut feel for their tolerance for change, commitment, ability to influence and what they view as important.  Most of the time we are wrong but if we had some real data for these areas, then we could establish effective communications and begin to understand what challenges faced us during our project time line.

The analysis of stakeholder and organizational requirements can be used to identify the degree of project related change required (both incremental or fundamental) and to diagnose required changes.  This gap analysis will provide a process for examining the differences between where the stakeholders are and where they need to be after the project is completed.  The difference between actual and desired future states indicates potential areas for planned interventions.  Once these differences have been identified, it will be important to assess priorities to guide the project communications activities.



You can see by the graphic that the stakeholder group in the analysis on the left is both committed and have a high tolerance for change.  On the right, a lot of the stakeholders in the analysis felt the project was very important but none had the ability (organization or decision making structure) to influence the change.  The only persion who had the ability to influence was identified the project as the lowest level of importance.  This analysis provides great insight to the project management team to use communications as a method of positive change.

Some of the key data points you could consider are:
*    Chart the boundaries between key organizations and the their managerial control for a successful project.
*    Chart the decision-making patterns between and within revelant organizational units.
*    Test for key organizational assumptions, principles and constraints.
*    Identify role definitions derived from stakeholder competencies.
*    Compare different locations among the impacted stakeholder groups.

Please share your thoughts about projects you have participated where you have developed similar analysis or after-the-fact should have.  Thanks for stopping by the blog.