Stakeholder and communications management
Stakeholder and communications management
This domain tests stakeholder identification, analysis, engagement planning and communication control.
Core rules
- Identify stakeholders broadly: sponsors, users, suppliers, regulators, affected communities and informal influencers.
- Analyse with a power/interest or influence/impact grid; record attitude as supporter, neutral or blocker.
- Choose an engagement level: inform, consult, involve, collaborate or empower.
- Build a communication plan covering audience, message, channel, frequency, owner and feedback mechanism.
- Communications are two-way; confirm understanding and log decisions and issues.
Worked example
A regulator has high power and high interest in a data migration. The grid places them in 'manage closely'. The plan sets monthly written updates, a quarterly face-to-face meeting and a named contact. Users have high interest but low power: they sit in 'keep informed' with weekly demos and a feedback channel. The sponsor has high power but lower day-to-day interest: a monthly one-page dashboard. Reasoning: channel and frequency follow influence and information needs, not convenience.
Traps
- Producing a stakeholder list without analysis or named owners.
- Ignoring indirect stakeholders such as families, unions or media.
- Treating communication as one-way broadcast.
- Over-communicating to low-interest groups and under-communicating to blockers.
- Failing to record issues raised and the responses given.