TABLE OF CONTENTS In Section 1.2.1, it was noted that stakeholders are numerous and sometimes difficult to identify. What we do know is that stakeholder involvement is context specific; that is what works for one software project or situation may not be appropriate in another.
The broad view of stakeholder identification focuses on a stakeholder s ability to influence organizations behaviour, direction, process or outcome, and focuses on the urgency, power, and legitimacy of the stakeholder in question (see Mitchell et al., 1997). However, because each type of stakeholder has a different legal, economic, and social relationship to a particular project, a general stakeholder identification approach may not be too helpful in defining and explaining specific obligations of managers to stakeholders.
Stakeholder analysis helps project managers and their advisors to assess a project environment, and to inform the organizations negotiating position in project talks. More specifically, undertaking a stakeholder analysis will:
draw out the interests of stakeholders in relation to the problems which the project is seeking to address or the purpose of the project
identify conflicts of interests between stakeholders, which will influence the organizations assessment of a projects risks before resources are committed (which is crucial for proposed projects)
help to identify relations between stakeholders which can be built upon, and maybe enable coalitions of project sponsorship, ownership, and co-operation
help to assess the appropriate type of participation by different stakeholders, at successive...
