How to Find the Hidden Stakeholders in Your Project
It’s every project manager’s worst nightmare: a stakeholder magically appears at the end of the project and makes your life miserable.
Here are a few examples:
- The project stalls at production because the IT team won’t install software that doesn’t meet the security requirements on their servers.
- The great new product is not being used because the end-users feel it is too complicated and don’t need it anyway.
- At delivery, the client refuses the product because it doesn’t meet an industry standard they forgot to inform you about.
Is any of this familiar? In any project, you’ll have visible and hidden stakeholders.
Visible stakeholders are easy to manage: they are vocal and will make their opinions known on their own. Even if they oppose your project, they can be monitored and, in time, convinced that your project is good.
Hidden stakeholders, however, are very dangerous. They won’t speak up. Sometimes, they are forgotten by the project team. As Murphy will have it, this stakeholder will appear in your project at the […]