Stakeholder Analysis
How to recognise Key Players
Key Players are stakeholders who have a high influence on your project and a high interest in the project's success or failure. These stakeholders are integral to the success of the project so it is essential that you identify them early, understand their motivations and develop an engagement strategy to ensure that their requirements are captured and their needs met.
Key Players will be influential people for example: senior staff who will direct the project or experts whose knowledge will be essential for the delivery of the project. Anyone who is has the power to decide on the project budget should be in this category along with those who could stop the project or divert project resources. The people or groups in this category may not be positive about the project, but they will be influential and interested enough to have a significant impact on project success.
Generally you would expect the following roles to fall into this category:
- Project Sponsor/executive
- Project Board members - may include C level executives depending on the profile of the project
- Project Manager
- Team Managers (managers of the people actually doing the work)
- Subject Matter Experts e.g. the lead developer on an IT project or a high profile management consultant bought in as an adviser
- The holder of the budget and/or business case (they may well be the project sponsor)
- Any senior executive who may have a keen interest, this might be because this is a pet project for them or involves a high profile customer
It is usually pretty easy to spot these key players because they will make themselves known to you. Their names will appear on sales paperwork, the account manager will refer to them in handover meetings. They will be at the kick off meeting and will usually take a role on the project team. Make sure they are consulted at all stages and use them to help drive your project to a successful conclusion.
