Identify all possible stakeholders and classify them according to their salience attributes. Provide a brief justification for each choice to receive full credit. “The commissioner of the State of New York’s Highway Department asks you to assist in selecting a new distributed computer simulation program for use in its Albany office.”
There are seven types of stakeholders depending on where they fit within the salience attributes model. You can categorize your stakeholders within these types as you’re doing your research and analysis of them.
- Dormant stakeholders: They have power but not urgency or legitimacy. As a project manager, you should be aware of them but there is no need for major communication and involvement.
- Discretionary stakeholders: They are legitimate but have no power or urgency. Their communication needs may be in the form of actually asking for some details but may not need a ton of attention other than just regular project updates.
- Demanding stakeholders: They are people that always seem to think that their work needs your immediate attention. If you spend too much time and effort on these stakeholders, you won’t gain much project mileage. There are other more important people to work with but you should keep them informed.
- Dominant stakeholders:Power and legitimacy overlap in this case. Dominant stakeholders have legitimacy and authority. Their communication and involvement needs must be taken into account at all times.
- Dangerous stakeholders: These stakeholders have the dangerous mix of power and urgency. This combination of power and urgency makes them crucial for the success of the project even though they are not directly involved in your project so as a project manager you must meet their needs and keep them engaged and satisfied.
- Dependent stakeholders: They are legitimate and have the urgency but do not have commensurate power. Keep them informed as they could be of help when you need to leverage their strengths in navigating organisational or project complexities.
- Definitive stakeholders: The most important area in this model – where power, urgency and legitimacy converge. This is the most critical category of stakeholders which is always to be kept informed, satisfied and involved and as a project manager, you need to provide focused attention to these stakeholders.
