Identifying Key Players: Ensure Satisfaction Among Crucial Individuals
The Mitchell, Agle, and Wood stakeholder salience model is a project management framework introduced in 1997 that helps teams identify and prioritize stakeholders based on three key attributes: power, legitimacy, and urgency [1].
Understanding the Attributes
- Power: This refers to a stakeholder’s ability to influence project decisions or outcomes.
- Legitimacy: This signifies the stakeholder’s rightful or appropriate involvement in the project.
- Urgency: This represents the time-sensitivity or critical nature of the stakeholder’s expectations or needs.
By evaluating these three dimensions, stakeholders are classified into categories such as dominant, demanding, discretionary, dormant, dependent, dangerous, or definitive stakeholders [1].
Benefits and Limitations
This classification helps project managers focus engagement efforts on the most important stakeholders at the right times, which improves communication, manages expectations, and reduces risks.
However, the assessment of power, legitimacy, and urgency can be subjective, and the model may oversimplify complex and dynamic stakeholder interactions. It also requires regular revisiting and updating as stakeholder attributes change over the project lifecycle [1].
Practical Application
In practice, project managers use this model by first listing all potential stakeholders, then assessing each against the three attributes, classifying them accordingly, and tailoring management strategies based on their salience category.
This enables effective allocation of attention and resources, increasing project success chances through stronger stakeholder collaboration. Stakeholder mapping allows project managers to understand who their stakeholders are and to what extent they will need information and management during the course of the project.
Types of Stakeholders
Stakeholders can be positively or negatively impacted by the project and its outcomes, and can include people within the business, government agencies, customers, suppliers, shareholders, regulatory authorities, and more.
For instance, promoter stakeholders have high interest and high power and require close management from the project manager. Apathetic stakeholders, on the other hand, have low power and low interest and require monitoring by the project manager.
Enhancing Understanding
Organizational hierarchy charts and other data sources can be used to enhance the understanding of stakeholders. The relationship between stakeholders and the project is not static and requires regular revisiting to ensure that the project manager is diverting their energies to the right people at the right time.
The Importance of Stakeholder Analysis
The goal of stakeholder analysis is to foster cooperation between stakeholders and the project team, ensuring the project’s success and meeting stakeholder objectives. The political and business objectives of internal stakeholders, who may have disproportionate influence due to hierarchical structures, should be considered.
Stakeholder analysis helps the project team track stakeholder interests and prioritize stakeholder management. It is crucial in maintaining a balanced and productive relationship between the project team and its stakeholders throughout the project lifecycle.
[1] Mitchell, R. K., Agle, B. W., & Wood, D. J. (1997). Toward a theory of stakeholder identification and salience: Defining the principal stakeholder concept. Academy of Management Review, 22(3), 581-604.
For an alternative form of stakeholder mapping, you can find a useful tool at http://www.policy-powertools.org/Tools/Understanding/docs/stakeholder_influence_mapping_tool_english.pdf.
- UI design and user experience are essential factors for the 'dominant' and 'promoter' stakeholders, who are usually high-power and high-interest stakeholders, requiring close management from the project manager.
- In the business context, understanding and managing stakeholder attributes such as power, legitimacy, and urgency is crucial for effective technology implementation, as it can potentially impact financing and overall project success.
