Project stakeholders are people or companies who are directly involved in the project or who have an invested interest in the project’s result. It is the task of the project manager to identify the project stakeholders and manage the project in order to achieve the targets and expectations.
Sometimes it is difficult to deal with stakeholders, because their interests or targets may overlap, or be in contradiction. The stakeholders can be the following groups of people:
- Top management (president, vice president, the directors of departments who are involved in the project executing process);
- Project manager (the person who is directly responsible for project planning and executing);
- Project team members (people who are responsible for project execution);
- Peers (people inside the project company, who have the same position in the company, but have only indirect interest in the project);
- Customer (the group of people, who are the project product end users);
- Sponsor (the company or people who have sponsored the project execution);
- Subcontractors and contractors (people or companies that have acquired expertise to execute a part of the project, but not as project team members).[1],[2]
[1] “A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge”, 2000 Edition, Project Management Institute, Newton Square, Pennsylvania, US.
[2] http://opentextbc.ca/projectmanagement/, Project Steakholders, by bpayne and Adrienne Watt.
