Defining the Project / Project Stakeholders

Defining the Project
2B Project Stakeholders
Chapter three

Many concerns should be taken into consideration when planning a project. First of all the right questions should be asked. Questions like who is in charge of the whole? Are the responsibilities defined and assigned? What is the best way of communication among the project team members? On answering these questions the team will be on its way to generate the rules of the working plan. These rules will define the project and set the foundation for the planning and control stages of the project. When viewing any project from far, it will seem to us that the technology is doing all the work, however, the real shakers and movers are the team members behind the initial planning. These are called the stakeholders. The Dictionary.com website defines a stakeholder as a person or group that has an investment, share, or interest in something, as a business or industry. The first step a project manager should do is to identify these people.

Stakeholder roles: Project team
Every single team member in the project has an assigned responsibility to perform specific to their role in the work plan. In my project for example, there are the team member that will shoot the pictures, the team member that will design a PowerPoint presentation for the project, and the member who will be doing the research. Every task is broken down to the basic skills. Every member is clear on his or her role and what to be expected from them.

Stakeholder roles: Management
The working relation between the project team members and the management should be on to of the priority list of the project manager. The management being the functional management that has a say in the outcome of the project, such as the executive and the first level managers. In my case, it will be the DLI administration.

Stakeholder roles: Sponsor
The sponsor’s position is significant to the communication between the project manger and the decision makers that are interested in the outcome of the project. The sponsor might provide advice, or influence the priorities of the project or delivery. A good sponsor realizes that he or she is sponsoring a project manager and his team and not the project. His job is to help the project manager to be successful. In addition, the sponsor may review and approve the statement of work (SOW), assist in developing a responsibility matrix, issuing a project charter, and approve the project plan among other things.

Stakeholder roles: customer
The reason for any project to exist is the existence of a beneficiary that is willing to pay for it and use it. The final say in the work plan for any project is the customer’s. Identifying the customer for certain project is no always that easy. For instant in my project, it is hard to clearly define the customer. The end user that will be using my program is not the party that will dictate the rules for the program. Although the program is designed to benefit the Arabic language learner, yet the party that set the standards is DLI. That’s why it is hard sometimes to differentiate between the authority on the project and the beneficiary.

End point:

To guarantee the success of any project, it is important to all the stakeholders have to reach an understanding and agree on the working plan and the goals of the project even before the work in the project starts. Then comes the crucial role of the project manager to coordinate all the team members and see the project from the beginning to the end.

Reference:

- Verzuh, Erick (2005). The Fast Forward MBA in Project Management. 2nd edition. Hoboken, New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.