Stakeholder Analysis

smenso offers comprehensive stakeholder management features that enable project teams to effectively identify, analyze, and manage stakeholders. Well-executed stakeholder management contributes significantly to project success by engaging potential supporters and identifying and addressing possible obstacles early.

Stakeholder analysis

Stakeholders are all project participants, interest groups, or organizations who are actively involved in the project or are affected by the project progress or outcome—and who themselves can influence the project progress or outcome. A stakeholder analysis in smenso includes the following steps:

• Identify potential supporters and promoters of the project: Identify stakeholders who can positively influence and support the project.
• Detect obstacles and resistance early: Identify stakeholders who are opposed to the project or could present obstacles.
• Identify potential project opponents: Recognize stakeholders who might act against the project.
• Include potentially affected parties: Ensure that all potentially affected people are involved in the project process.
• Capture the individual goals of stakeholders: Document each stakeholder’s specific goals and expectations.

This analysis forms the basis for stakeholder management, the creation of a communication plan, project marketing, and risk management planning.

Stakeholder management features in smenso

Stakeholder identification

smenso enables the identification and capture of all relevant stakeholders. This is done by creating a new folder in the tasks area named “Stakeholder.” Each identified stakeholder is added as a separate task and described in detail.

Collect stakeholder information

In smenso, detailed information can be collected for each stakeholder. This includes the stakeholder description, assigning a responsible resource, naming the stakeholder, and using the “Stakeholder” label.

Stakeholder classification

Stakeholders can be classified in smenso using various flavors:

• Power: Assessment of the stakeholder’s influence (low, medium, high).
• Support: Assessment of the stakeholder’s support for the project (from 1 – highly negative to 6 – highly positive).
• Category: Optional classification by categories such as internal or external.

Effort documentation

The effort required to manage each stakeholder can be documented in hours. This enables precise evaluation of the support effort and aids resource planning.

Action planning per stakeholder

smenso allows planning specific actions for each stakeholder. These actions are recorded as subtasks and can be described in detail and assigned to a responsible resource.

Monitoring and adjustment

Adherence to planned actions and any changes related to stakeholders are continuously monitored. This dynamic adjustment ensures that stakeholder management remains current and effective.

Visualization and evaluation

smenso provides powerful visualization tools to present stakeholder data:

• List view: In addition to the board view, stakeholders can be managed and edited in a list view. This enables clear management and filtering by stakeholder flavors.
• Stakeholder widget: A configurable bubble chart visualizes stakeholder power and support as well as the management effort. This graphic helps quickly grasp the stakeholder landscape and manage it in a targeted way.

Cross-project stakeholder management

smenso enables viewing and managing stakeholders across multiple projects. Via the project portfolio, stakeholders can be filtered, sorted, and grouped by the “Stakeholder” label. This cross-project perspective simplifies the comprehensive management of all relevant stakeholders in the organization.

Conclusion

The smenso project software provides a comprehensive and flexible solution for stakeholder management. By identifying, analyzing, planning, and visualizing stakeholder information, smenso helps project teams engage potential supporters, recognize and address resistance, and thereby ensure project success.