5.1Stakeholder identification & analysis

A project involves many parties with differing positions and interests: sponsors, user departments, end users, regulators, subcontractors, and more. If the PM tries to engage everyone with the same intensity, limited time and effort get spread thin, leaving truly important stakeholders under-served. This section builds the judgment to identify stakeholders without omission, understand each one's degree of engagement and level of influence and interest, and apply a deliberately differentiated response.

5.1.1Stakeholder identification and engagement level

• Stakeholder identification is the ongoing process, starting at project initiation, of surfacing the individuals, groups, and organizations that affect or are affected by the project's decisions, execution, and outcomes, and recording them in the stakeholder register along with their interests, influence, and expectations. New stakeholders often surface partway through, so this is not a one-time exercise but must be revisited iteratively.
• Engagement level is a scale describing each stakeholder's current stance toward the project (unaware to resistant to neutral to supportive to leading). Tracking engagement level makes visible the gap between a stakeholder's current stance and the stance needed for project success, allowing the PM to prioritize outreach that closes that gap.