Course Assessment All course modules have a short quiz or other activities to help you review and practice your learning. You can attempt these as…

https://vimeo.com/736580553 Welcome to the Stakeholder Management and Communications course. This is a self-directed learning programme designed to help you develop new skills at your own…

https://vimeo.com/706964379 So, what’s next? There’s been a lot covered in this course. Only implement what you want to implement. Treat this course like a menu…

Review of Learning Outcomes When we started the course, our objectives were to develop knowledge about the following points: Different methods to identify stakeholders. It is really…

https://vimeo.com/706959713 In this topic, we will be looking at some guidelines for engaging and communicating with your stakeholders. 1. Recognise your Stakeholders Recognise who the…

What Prevents Good Stakeholder Engagement? In this topic, we will be focusing on problems that can negatively impact effective stakeholder engagement. So, what prevents good…

Increase the Chance of Project Success In this section, we will reflect on why is stakeholder engagement important. We must remember that stakeholder engagement is…

Capability Maturity Model A standard Capability Maturity Model (CMM) can be applied to many things. Typically, the CMM has 5 levels: Ad-Hoc Procedural – Repeatable…

Explore All Options First Compromise can be a loss-win. We need to make sure that we have explored all options before agreeing to compromise. Ideally,…

Notice the Warning Signs In this topic, we will discuss the methods to deal with difficult stakeholders. It is important to note the top warning…

An Ongoing Process Previously, we have learned about stakeholder communication and engagement. Now we need to keep engaging continuously with the stakeholders. Stakeholder engagement is…

Setting Clear Expectations It is important to set expectations with the project stakeholders. We need to meet with them, and clearly tell them what we are going…

https://vimeo.com/706938222 In this topic, we will be studying existing project management tools that we can use to prompt stakeholder communication. RACI Chart A responsibility assignment…

https://vimeo.com/706936747 In order to maintain good communication with our stakeholders, we need a communication plan to engage with the stakeholders. We already looked at how…

https://vimeo.com/706936224 This section is about communication with stakeholders. We need to start communicating before we know that we have to. There is a popular phrase:…

https://vimeo.com/706933729 The Association for Project Management (APM) has looked very deeply at stakeholder engagement. Ten years ago, some members were not happy with the term…

Benefits of Stakeholder Engagement It is observed that engaging the stakeholders always benefits everyone involved in a project. Effective stakeholder engagement adds value to the…

https://vimeo.com/708215920 In this section, we will try to get our stakeholders to be more supportive and actively involved in our projects. If they are unaware,…

https://vimeo.com/708144733 There are three main components of stakeholder management: Stakeholder identification Stakeholder analysis Stakeholder engagement Firstly, we identify the stakeholder, and then we analyse them.…

https://vimeo.com/706918493 To summarise this section, we have taken the identified stakeholders and added them to the stakeholder register. We then classified them in a convenient manner, adding the new information to…

Power, Legitimacy or Urgency How do you decide if a stakeholder has Power, Legitimacy, or Urgency?  There is a train of thought that our organisational culture…

What’s Important to your Stakeholders? The previous stakeholder analysis was a two-by-two matrix. It assigned the stakeholders into one of four boxes. This next model is called the…

https://vimeo.com/706916190 The key analysis of stakeholders is whether they are powerful or interested in the project. We can then assign the stakeholders into four categories as…

https://vimeo.com/706915121 In previous sections, we discussed what information should initially be collected on the stakeholder register. Now, we can start to classify, and then analyse…

Components of the Stakeholder Register We are currently going through three main steps of stakeholder engagement: Identify the stakeholders Classify and analyse the stakeholders Engage with…

https://vimeo.com/706910018 In this section we have been trying to identify the stakeholders. We cannot analyse them if we do not identify them in the first place, so identification is important.  Stakeholder…

Stakeholder Circle Another way to identify our stakeholders is called the stakeholder circle. We need to consider what we are doing, and then think about…

Relationships or Processes? Building relationships with stakeholders is better than following processes. We can say that stakeholder management is process led, whilst stakeholder engagement is relationship…

Identify Stakeholders Early The best time to identify your stakeholders is while you are initiating and planning the project.   Projects typically follow this sort of sequence…

https://vimeo.com/706904390 We now move away from communication, assertiveness and negotiation to talk about project stakeholders exclusively. The three main steps of this process: Identifying stakeholders,…

Let’s Review Here are some key learning points to help you prepare for successful negotiations:  In negotiation, preparation is key. Know what you want. Prepare…

Language and body language  One way of understanding the other party’s approach to the negotiation is to listen to their language.   If people in a negotiation…

Preparing for Successful Negotiations This section will provide us with an approach to negotiation that is more about bargaining than combat.   We have to make sure…

Different Negotiation Outcomes There are four possible outcomes from negotiations: Win/Win: The ideal negotiation scenario. This is where we reach a solution that is beneficial to…

Preparing for Negotiations We may need to negotiate for many things in our relationships with our stakeholders – we need to get more time, we need…

https://vimeo.com/706898542 This section is about negotiation and other options that can be used to resolve a conflict. Negotiation is only one option to get to an…

Conflict is Inevitable Conflict has traditionally been seen as bad. People tend to think conflict is caused by troublemakers and is best to be avoided.…

https://vimeo.com/706895045 In this topic we will be discussing the tips about how to be assertive when delivering the bad news. It might be part of…

Why it can be difficult to say NO Sometimes we just have to say “NO” to people, and some people can find this exceedingly difficult.…

https://vimeo.com/715223238 In this topic, we will be looking at a few examples of assertiveness in action. In the example shown in the video, we can…

https://vimeo.com/706891877 There are three ways of being assertive:  Broken Record  Positive Attitude   A three-step approach  We are going to look at the first two briefly,…

https://vimeo.com/706890954 In this section we will be viewing two people competences. One is Assertiveness and the other is Negotiation.  Being assertive is going to help us get our…

What shows somebody that you’re listening? We have asked a lot of questions, and now we need to listen to the replies. Engaging people means…

Four Types of Questions Here is a big question: “What questions do I need to ask to understand and achieve success, as seen from the…

The Kick-off Meeting The first major time you communicate on a project is a project kick-off meeting. It is essential for project managers to be…

Message sent and received We are talking about communication and having interactions with our project stakeholders to build the relationship. Typically, messages get sent, and…

What is Emotional Intelligence? Emotional intelligence is sometimes referred to as EQ and opposed to IQ. EQ allows you to develop positive relationships. Relationships with…

Finding your Leadership Style Some managers are concerned about the people in the project team, while others are more concerned about getting the job done.…

Plan Project Communications Communication is a big reason why projects fail. As such, it could be considered that communication is the project manager’s single most…

Recognising Other Viewpoints Take a moment to think about how you feel today. Try to score your mood on a scale of 1 to 10,…

Different Viewpoints Theories on communication are a lot older and more complex than theories about stakeholder management. There will also be some specialised courses dedicated…

Why Projects fail One of the main reasons projects fail is because the deliverables were not what the customer wanted, or they don’t meet the…

Who are the Stakeholders? This is a brief introduction to stakeholder identification, which we are going to cover later in the course in greater detail.…

Project’s Sphere of Influence Projects have a wide sphere of influence. There are a lot of people to communicate to at different organisation levels in…

What does management mean? Management can be seen as the day-to-day responsibilities and accountability that we are actively managing our work, or operations. It is…