Introduction

 

Throughout this semester we looked at the stakeholders by how much of a key role they play within the projects and also how they affect the final end product. We looked in-depth of stakeholder analysis and mapping. The key of stakeholder mapping is that we can see which stakeholder plays a key role with the project that we were conducting at the moment for example one stakeholder might have a high influence however they might have very little interest.  The Youth offending team and Northumbria water projects were the 2 main project that we carefully looked of how their stakeholders would affect the outcomes of the project. Then also using different methods or techniques of making sure the stakeholders in them projects help us reach a unified objective that will satisfy all of them.

 

Stakeholder Analysis/Mapping

 

Stakeholders are important because many businesses have a responsibility of making sure that they satisfy multiple stakeholders in addition of also making profit at the same time. Then also mapping out the stakeholders, this helps to understand who the stakeholders are, where they actually come from and what form of relationship they have with the company or the project. The stakeholder’s analysis helps to identify the stakeholders, then mapping out their relative power, interests and influence in a certain area or specific initiative. Then identifying each stakeholders and the relative priority they have in the specific project or business. Allowing this would us to assess the importance of each stakeholder to the success of the project (Aligica, 2006).

 

There are many different ways of mapping out the stakeholders for example the power versus interest’s grid which was created by Eden and Ackerman. The grid is a two by two matrix, which shows the low and high of the stakeholders vertically and the low and high power horizontally.  This grid helps to determine which players (stakeholders) interests and power bases have to be taken into account. This method can also be used to provide some information on how to convince stakeholder to change their views (Bryson, 2004).  However there are other methods of identifying stakeholders and then mapping them out for example the Stakeholder-led stakeholder categorisation method. This method gets the stakeholder themselves to categorise stakeholders into the categories which they have created.  The advantage of using this method is that the stakeholders’ categories are based on the perceptions of the stakeholders. Hare and Pahl-Wostl used this method by applying a card sorting experiment with their stakeholders. In their project they asked each stakeholder to sort out the cards that had listings all of the stakeholders into groups according to their own criteria. They used this method because it helped them to identify the structure of interactions and groupings between the stakeholders from the stakeholder’s perspectives (Reed et al, 2009). We used a similar method when we were conducting our exercise in our second workshop with the staff members from YOT. However we asked them individually which stakeholders from the list we provided them had the greatest interest of the work that they do for YOT.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(Source: Eden and Ackermen (1998))

 

Stakeholder analysis/mapping into the projects

 

In the Northumbria water project, we did this by identifying which stakeholders would be important for us in this project and then selecting the ones that would have the highest interest and also the highest influences.  Then mapping them out which will give us a better visualisation of what it would look like. Also in the Youth Offending Team (YOT) project, in one of the workshops we used the net-map tool that helped us visualise to of what kind relationship that the staff members at YOT have with the other stakeholders in their organisation. Then mapping out the each of the stakeholders on the level of influence they have with staff members. The net-map tool allowed us to see which stakeholders have a high influence on the staff members and thier personal objectives.

 

In the Northumbrian Water project we used the list of criteria that BSR (Business for Social Responsibility) developed to help us analyse each identified stakeholders. This helped us to see their relationship into the four areas of the project and also their usefulness for the engagement of the project process. The list consists of looking into their contribution, legitimacy, willingness to engage, influence and the necessity of involvement. Assigning values (low, medium, high) into these five criteria to the stakeholders help us to identify which key stakeholders would decide our outcome of our project objectives. The group that I was involved in that particular project was the animation group. We decided that the key stakeholders were going to be children, students and parents because they had the highest interests on our final end product that we were producing (Morris & Baddache, 2012).    

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(Source: BSR (2012))

 

The stakeholder analysis helped us in the YOT project such as looking into the networks of the stakeholders that the YOT staff members had to communicate with. This gave us a better insight of much of their operations and services chances depending of the stakeholder they are working with or going to work with them in the future. We used the Eva Schiffer net-map in the first workshop and the mapping it out using the ecology map. We mapped by the level of interest each stakeholders have on the staff members from YOT. We were able to gain valuable insight by conducting this tool with the YOT staff members because we were able to find out which stakeholders play key roles on the staff members day to day work lives. This was very beneficial for us as a group because it gave us an overview of where the communications of breakpoints were. Furthermore the map did tell us of how each staff member view their stakeholders differently to the other staff members such as some thought the police played a big role when working with them however some didn’t. This made us understand as group they had different viewpoints of the work they did in YOT.

 

Summary

 

I’ve realised that how important it is to do stakeholder analysis because it helps to realise of how much influential they are when it comes to the projects being successful or unsuccessful. Also using different mapping tools to create a visualisation of showing how each stakeholder play a key role of judging the projects outcomes.  For example looking at which stakeholders have high influence and high interest in the project. Overall I believe that if only we paid more attention to the stakeholders, then it would have allowed us to have clear objectives because we would have created these objectives looking at the key stakeholders that affect them.