People round a tableWhat would happen if someone new came on board tomorrow?  Not necessarily a project team member, but a new executive?



It’s not that unusual.  Stakeholders at executive level change frequently.  From time to time the board will move responsibilities for certain initiatives around between themselves.  You might find that your project is now the responsibility of the marketing director instead of the sales director.  Or that something previously sponsored by finance is now sitting with the VP of Product Development.



Executive stakeholders can also change due to redundancy or through the post holder finding a new career opportunity.  On a long project, you should expect a certain degree of change.  And the more senior the stakeholder, the less notice you will get about the change.



Are you ready to induct a new stakeholder at a moment’s notice?  If all your project documentation is up to date it should be relatively straightforward.  However, bringing on board a new stakeholder is not without challenges.



For example:

 

 





     
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  • How much does the new stakeholder know about the project?




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  • How much do they care about the project?




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  • How much do they intend to change the project’s deliverables?




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  • Do they understand the change management process?




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  • Have they ever been involved in a project before?




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  • How do they like to receive project communications?




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  • How available are they going to be to you and the project team?




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  • How much involvement do they intend to have in the day-to-day running of the project?




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  • How much influence do they have over other, existing stakeholders?




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A new stakeholder will need to slot into the existing structure.  A new project sponsor may well have different views about the objectives and deliverables for the project. Let’s look at both in turn.



A new stakeholder



As you did at the beginning of the project for the original stakeholder base, conduct a new stakeholder analysis.  How has the new stakeholder changed the dynamic of the project?  Where do they fit on the stakeholder management grid looking at interest and influence?  Once you have established their position and relative influence over the project, you can start to develop a stakeholder management strategy – again, as you would do with any stakeholder at the beginning of the project.



Spend some time with your new stakeholder to get to know them and to bring them up to speed with the project so far and what is expected of them and their team (if anything) as the project progresses.



A new sponsor



Initially a new sponsor may not want to change anything, but once they have led the project for a while they may start to introduce some changes.  Ideally, these should be adopted (using the formally change control process) if possible, but you should take the opportunity to explain to the new sponsor at what point it is no longer possible to make certain changes.  Take them through your project plan, and ensure they understand how to read the Gantt chart in Project Viewer by Seavus or whatever tool you use.



Show them previous steering group reports and check that they are happy with the format, and their role as new chair of the steering group.



Hopefully you will have some handover between old stakeholders and new, or the old sponsor and the new sponsor, but in real life that isn’t always possible.  A short handover meeting might be all you get, or you may not have anything at all.  Try to spend a bit of time with the old stakeholder – even if you have to do so without the new stakeholder there.  Find out what outstanding actions they had, so you can pass these on to the new team.