Christopher Thurman

Stakeholders of a project

When thinking of people who are stakeholders, one must think of everyone who is involved in this project. Stakeholders are the people who are important on the project. They are the party who can be affected or affects the project. It would be the people who without it the project would cease to exist. Also you must look at who will be greatly impacted by the project, if the project when well whose job would be the easiest. Likewise, if the project did not go well, who or whom would have a very hard time in their jobs.  Once the stakeholders are identified, then the person who is behind the project can be revealed, the project sponsor.

Project Sponsors

After you have identified everyone on the project who has a stake in it, there is only one person left. That person is the project sponsor. A project sponsor is the person or group of people who see that something needs to change and they have that authority to make that change happen. Without them mentioning the project, then it will never happen. The most important thing about a project sponsor is that there are not a lot of people in the company that have enough authority or influence to undertake the work and bring about the change in the project, but not only in that project in every project. For this reason the project sponsor would be the company board of directors if there is a board of directors. If there is not a board of directors, then the project sponsor would be a group of people. The first person would be the person who controls the daily operations; this person is also the lead stakeholder. Also, customers can to a certain extent be the project sponsor. The information about the person who controls the daily operation does have enough power in the company to influence. However, there is one person or people who have amazing power and they all might not know it. Every company does what they do for the customer. If the customer does not like something and there is enough of them, then that company will change in order to keep that customer. Likewise, if the company is doing something correct. Then the company will keep on doing what is correct in order to keep the customer happy. For this reason the customer can also be a project sponsor.

References:

MSH and UNICEF. 1998. Stakeholder Analysis. The Guide to Managing for Quality.  Retrieved
January 21, 2010 http://erc.msh.org/quality/ittools/itstkan.cfm

Wallace, Sam. 1999-20007. Project Definition.  Retrieved January 21, 2010.                http://www.epmbook.com/projdefwhy.htm