Chapter 4. Managing Your Stakeholders

By the end of this chapter, you will be able to:

• Conduct a stakeholder analysis to identify your stakeholder groups

• Describe the behaviors that end users display during the different phases of adopting a change

• Conduct a change impact assessment to determine how the change will impact tools and technology, business processes, and people

• Motivate your project team, even during difficult projects

Once you have your sponsors in place, you need to understand who your stakeholders are and how to work with them throughout the change.

A stakeholder is any individual or group that is impacted by the change. They fall into three main categories: sponsors, end users, and the project team. We developed a plan to work with sponsors in Chapter 3, Building Sponsorship for the Change. This chapter will focus on end users and the project team.

An end user is anyone who will have to use the new tools, follow the new processes, or displays the new behaviors that you are implementing...

Conducting a stakeholder analysis

Different sets of people will be impacted by the change in different ways and at different times. To increase the adoption of the change across these various groups, you will need to customize your change program to ensure that the right people participate in the right activities at the right time. In order to do this, you will start by breaking your overall group of stakeholders into smaller stakeholder groups.

Note

Tip

To determine who your stakeholders are and the impact they can have on the project, you will need to conduct a stakeholder analysis.

The following is a template you can use to organize and track your stakeholder groups. Take a minute to review it, and then continue reading to discover how to complete each column.

Group	Last name	First name	Level of influence	Level of impact	Current support for change	Required support for change

Each column is defined as follows. As you read through the column definitions, think about how...

The change curve

Now that you have identified your stakeholders, you can begin to measure their progress toward adopting the change. Change managers often measure how well stakeholders are adopting the change by measuring their behavior against a change curve. There are different versions of the change curve that address both behaviors and emotions. The two most common curve shapes are discussed in the following sections.

Change and grief

People often associate change with loss. As a result, there are some change managers that use the Kubler-Ross Five Stages of Grief to explain the stages of change that people experience. These stages are:

1. Denial

2. Anger

3. Bargaining

4. Depression

5. Acceptance

Using these stages, people will move from the left side of the following curve to the right:

The classic change curve

Other change managers follow what many consider the classic change curve. Daryl Conner, author of Managing at the Speed of Change (Random House; 1 edition (February 7, 2006)), listed the following eight...

Understanding the stages of change

For each stage, we will look at a description of the stage, as well as the desired behavior that people should demonstrate in that stage. I have also included the exit criteria for each stage. This is the behavior the stakeholders should be exhibiting before they are ready to move to the next stage of the change curve.

Note

Tip

Remember that different stakeholder groups will move through the stages of change at different times. For example, you should certainly expect that your executive sponsors would be at a more advanced stage than the average end user.

Unawareness

Your stakeholders will start in the unaware stage. In this stage, they have little or no knowledge about the change that is being implemented. This is to be expected because at this point, you have not yet started to communicate the change.

Behavior

At the beginning of this phase, stakeholders are still walking around in the happy glow of the status quo. They may suspect that a change will come...

Surviving the Valley of Despair

As I have mentioned throughout this chapter, it's not realistic to expect that everyone will have a smooth journey along the change curve. In fact, most change managers will warn you that you should expect to experience a performance dip as a result of the change.

This performance dip is often called the Valley of Despair and is shown on a graph like the following one. The dip occurs after the change is implemented when productivity falls as people try to adjust to the new way to do things. The horizontal purple line shows how long the performance dip lasts. The vertical line shows how severe the performance dip is. The length and severity of the dip can vary drastically from organization to organization, and even across different stakeholder groups within the same organization.

While I agree that the Valley of Despair occurs, I actually believe it should show two performance dips, as in the following graph. In this case, in addition to the performance dip that...

Conducting a change impact assessment

Now that you have identified your stakeholders and understand their movement along the change curve, you're ready to conduct a change impact assessment.

Note

Tip

The change impact assessment identifies how the change will impact the tools/technology, processes, and people in your organization. Notice that "impact" is a value neutral word. An impact can be either negative or positive.

Tools and technology

The first step in conducting the Change Impact Assessment (CIA) is to determine how the change will impact the tools and technology in the organization. This step comes first because it is usually straightforward, and the results will help you complete the process and people portions of the CIA.

Begin by listing the top five to ten benefits that your organization wants to achieve related to the change program. Some examples might be, "reduce the time required to approve purchase requisitions", "have automated regulatory checks", or "standardize business...

Including end users in the change process

In Chapter 3, Building Sponsorship for the Change, we discovered why it is important to include your sponsorship groups in the project, and created a plan around the activities that they would participate in. It is equally important to include end users in various activities throughout the project. You don't need to include every end user; however, it is a good idea to select a representative sample from the various stakeholder groups you identified earlier in this chapter.

Note

Tip

Consider including individual stakeholders that are very influential or that need to increase their level of support.

The following is a list of activities that you should include a group of end users with. Note that this is not an exhaustive list. Consider the activities that are key to the success of your change, and think about whether it makes sense to include a group of end users.

• User acceptance testing: Once your project team and super users have conducted the majority...

Working with the project team

The last stakeholder group we will focus on is the project team. It is easy to forget that members of the project team are stakeholders; after all, working on the project is their job.

Note

Tip

Remember though that the project team's everyday performance has a direct and powerful impact on the success of the project.

Dealing with a difficult project

Project work is difficult. Many project team members work much longer hours than usual. They are learning and applying new skills all the time. Timelines are tight, deadlines loom, and the pressure is high. Added to this, many team members are worried about whether their colleagues will like the change they are implementing, and it's not surprising that after a while, people start to become frustrated, discouraged, and overwhelmed.

All of these issues are amplified when a project encounters difficulties such as falling behind schedule, running out of money, struggling with technical issues, or encountering unexpected...

Summary

Implementing a change is not easy, but if you go into the project with an understanding of who your stakeholders are, the behaviors they need to exhibit, the impacts they will face, and the difficulties you will encounter, then you have everything you need to build an effective stakeholder management plan. Keep in mind the following list of tips and tricks:

The rest of the chapter is locked

Unlock this book and the full library FREE for 7 days

Get unlimited access to 7000+ expert-authored eBooks and videos courses covering every tech area you can think of

Renews at $15.99/month. Cancel anytime

Start free trial

Previous Chapter

Chapter 9 of 12

Next Chapter

You have been reading a chapter from

Practical Change Management for IT Projects

Published in: Mar 2014Publisher: ISBN-13: 9781783000302

© 2014 Packt Publishing Limited All Rights Reserved

Register for a free Packt account to unlock a world of extra content!

A free Packt account unlocks extra newsletters, articles, discounted offers, and much more. Start advancing your knowledge today.

Sign up now

undefined

Unlock this book and the full library FREE for 7 days

Get unlimited access to 7000+ expert-authored eBooks and videos courses covering every tech area you can think of

Start free trial

Renews at $15.99/month. Cancel anytime

Author (1)

Emily Carr

Emily Carr has been working as a Change Management consultant for over a decade. As a consultant, she has worked with Fortune 500 companies to develop and execute successful Change Management, communications, and training programs for large-scale business and IT projects. These programs have had global reach across the United States, Australia, India, Eastern Europe, and the Middle East. Emily is also the author of the popular Change Management blog, Practical Change Management.
Read more about Emily Carr

See other products by Emily Carr

Personalised recommendations for you

Based on your interests and search pattern

Engineering Manager's Handbook

Engineering Manager's Handbook is a comprehensive guide for managers to excel in their role, foster customer-centric digital products, learn leadership, team building, and balancing technical work with management. You’ll also explore how to develop trust, authority, and collaboration to drive success and make a lasting impact.

BookSep 2023278 pages

C++ Game Animation Programming

Video game characters have a fascinating history, evolving from simple 2D sprites to high-polygon 3D models. Take a look behind the curtain and learn how to build a 3D renderer, load character models, play animations and blend between them, and create large crowds of animated people with this comprehensive C++ game animation programming guide.

BookDec 2023480 pages

Gamification for Product Excellence

This book helps you to take your product management strategy to the next level by standing out in crowded markets. Along with boosting user adoption rates by creating engaging products that incorporate playful elements, learn gamification theory and how to integrate it into your design, product development, and product management processes.

BookSep 2023350 pages

Supercharging Productivity with Trello

Supercharging Productivity with Trello is the ultimate guide for anyone looking to boost their productivity with digital tools. Whether you're new to Trello or a seasoned professional, this book covers everything from core features to advanced automation, and Power-Ups.

BookAug 2023342 pages

Automate It with Zapier and Generative AI

This comprehensive guide takes you through the concepts of business process automation, showing you how Zapier can facilitate it without having to write code and helping you to boost productivity. You’ll learn how to save time, reduce costs, and make your business recession-proof by using Zapier to automate tasks in your cloud-based business apps.

BookAug 2023706 pages

Scoring to Picture in Logic Pro

In this book, you’ll explore a variety of techniques to synchronize music to picture using Logic Pro. Though this is not a technical manual, it will teach you how to make the best use of Logic Pro and how to wield this technology to maximize your potential when scoring to picture.

BookSep 2023412 pages

Mastering Information Security Compliance Management

This concise book equips you with the knowledge and practices needed to establish and maintain an effective information security management system. The chapters provide insights into ISO/IEC 27001/27002:2022, risk management, ISMS development, incident management, audit processes, and strategies for continuous improvement.

BookAug 2023236 pages1

Implementing Atlassian Confluence

Implementing Atlassian Confluence provides both a high-level overview and an insightful path for remote collaboration with Atlassian Confluence. With this multi-layered yet practical guide, you’ll be able to set up Confluence-based collaboration with minimum external consultancy services to ensure smooth and close coordination between teams.

BookSep 2023406 pages

R Bioinformatics Cookbook

This book takes a unique problem–solution approach to handling complex tasks in the bioinformatics domain using different datasets present in the book. With the help of real-world examples, you’ll learn to put each independent recipe to use to tackle problems in the field of bioinformatics.

BookOct 2023396 pages

Build Your Own Metaverse with Unity

Build Your own Metaverse with Unity is a practical guide for developers to create their own metaverse - a virtual world with infinite possibilities. It empowers you to identify gaps in existing metaverses and improve upon them, enabling you to shape your virtual world.

BookSep 2023586 pages5

GO TO TOP

Machine LearningKubernetesReactPythonCybersecurityUnity Game DevelopmentPower BIAzureWeb Development

• Machine Learning
• Kubernetes
• React
• Python
• Cybersecurity
• Unity Game Development
• Power BI
• Azure
• Web Development

Legal

Terms and ConditionsPrivacy PolicyCookie PolicyShipping PolicyReturn Policy

Support

HelpContact Us

Business

Partnerships

Sponsored eBooks

Custom eBooks

CareersBecome an author

Packt+ Membership

SubscriptionDataProSecPro

Packt Subscription Packt NewsLetter

Legal

Terms and Conditions

Privacy Policy

Cookie Policy

Shipping Policy

Return Policy

Support

Help

Contact Us

Business

Packt Subscription

Packt NewsLetter

---

Company Address: Packt Publishing Ltd, Grosvenor House, 11 St Paul's Square, Birmingham, B3 1RB© 2024 Packt Publishing Limited All Rights Reserved

When this happens…	Do this…
You need to know who your stakeholders are at both group and individual levels	Conduct a stakeholder analysis to identify the level of influence and support for the change for each stakeholder.
Different groups and individuals will move along the change curve at different rates	Don't panic! Map the current versus the desired change state for various stakeholders, remembering that not everyone needs to be at the same stage at the same time.
Performance will dip both before and after the change is implemented	Take a deep breath and remind yourself (and your leadership team) that this is a normal...

The change curve

Now that you have identified your stakeholders, you can begin to measure their progress toward adopting the change. Change managers often measure how well stakeholders are adopting the change by measuring their behavior against a change curve. There are different versions of the change curve that address both behaviors and emotions. The two most common curve shapes are discussed in the following sections.

Change and grief

People often associate change with loss. As a result, there are some change managers that use the Kubler-Ross Five Stages of Grief to explain the stages of change that people experience. These stages are:

1. Denial

2. Anger

3. Bargaining

4. Depression

5. Acceptance

Using these stages, people will move from the left side of the following curve to the right:

The classic change curve

Other change managers follow what many consider the classic change curve. Daryl Conner, author of Managing at the Speed of Change (Random House; 1 edition (February 7, 2006)), listed the following eight...

Understanding the stages of change

For each stage, we will look at a description of the stage, as well as the desired behavior that people should demonstrate in that stage. I have also included the exit criteria for each stage. This is the behavior the stakeholders should be exhibiting before they are ready to move to the next stage of the change curve.

Note

Tip

Remember that different stakeholder groups will move through the stages of change at different times. For example, you should certainly expect that your executive sponsors would be at a more advanced stage than the average end user.

Unawareness

Your stakeholders will start in the unaware stage. In this stage, they have little or no knowledge about the change that is being implemented. This is to be expected because at this point, you have not yet started to communicate the change.

Behavior

At the beginning of this phase, stakeholders are still walking around in the happy glow of the status quo. They may suspect that a change will come...

Surviving the Valley of Despair

As I have mentioned throughout this chapter, it's not realistic to expect that everyone will have a smooth journey along the change curve. In fact, most change managers will warn you that you should expect to experience a performance dip as a result of the change.

This performance dip is often called the Valley of Despair and is shown on a graph like the following one. The dip occurs after the change is implemented when productivity falls as people try to adjust to the new way to do things. The horizontal purple line shows how long the performance dip lasts. The vertical line shows how severe the performance dip is. The length and severity of the dip can vary drastically from organization to organization, and even across different stakeholder groups within the same organization.

While I agree that the Valley of Despair occurs, I actually believe it should show two performance dips, as in the following graph. In this case, in addition to the performance dip that...

Conducting a change impact assessment

Now that you have identified your stakeholders and understand their movement along the change curve, you're ready to conduct a change impact assessment.

Note

Tip

The change impact assessment identifies how the change will impact the tools/technology, processes, and people in your organization. Notice that "impact" is a value neutral word. An impact can be either negative or positive.

Tools and technology

The first step in conducting the Change Impact Assessment (CIA) is to determine how the change will impact the tools and technology in the organization. This step comes first because it is usually straightforward, and the results will help you complete the process and people portions of the CIA.

Begin by listing the top five to ten benefits that your organization wants to achieve related to the change program. Some examples might be, "reduce the time required to approve purchase requisitions", "have automated regulatory checks", or "standardize business...

Including end users in the change process

In Chapter 3, Building Sponsorship for the Change, we discovered why it is important to include your sponsorship groups in the project, and created a plan around the activities that they would participate in. It is equally important to include end users in various activities throughout the project. You don't need to include every end user; however, it is a good idea to select a representative sample from the various stakeholder groups you identified earlier in this chapter.

Note

Tip

Consider including individual stakeholders that are very influential or that need to increase their level of support.

The following is a list of activities that you should include a group of end users with. Note that this is not an exhaustive list. Consider the activities that are key to the success of your change, and think about whether it makes sense to include a group of end users.

• User acceptance testing: Once your project team and super users have conducted the majority...

Working with the project team

The last stakeholder group we will focus on is the project team. It is easy to forget that members of the project team are stakeholders; after all, working on the project is their job.

Note

Tip

Remember though that the project team's everyday performance has a direct and powerful impact on the success of the project.

Dealing with a difficult project

Project work is difficult. Many project team members work much longer hours than usual. They are learning and applying new skills all the time. Timelines are tight, deadlines loom, and the pressure is high. Added to this, many team members are worried about whether their colleagues will like the change they are implementing, and it's not surprising that after a while, people start to become frustrated, discouraged, and overwhelmed.

All of these issues are amplified when a project encounters difficulties such as falling behind schedule, running out of money, struggling with technical issues, or encountering unexpected...

Summary

Implementing a change is not easy, but if you go into the project with an understanding of who your stakeholders are, the behaviors they need to exhibit, the impacts they will face, and the difficulties you will encounter, then you have everything you need to build an effective stakeholder management plan. Keep in mind the following list of tips and tricks:

The rest of the chapter is locked

Unlock this book and the full library FREE for 7 days

Get unlimited access to 7000+ expert-authored eBooks and videos courses covering every tech area you can think of

Renews at $15.99/month. Cancel anytime

Start free trial

Previous Chapter

Chapter 9 of 12

Next Chapter

You have been reading a chapter from

Practical Change Management for IT Projects

Published in: Mar 2014Publisher: ISBN-13: 9781783000302

© 2014 Packt Publishing Limited All Rights Reserved

Register for a free Packt account to unlock a world of extra content!

A free Packt account unlocks extra newsletters, articles, discounted offers, and much more. Start advancing your knowledge today.

Sign up now

undefined

Unlock this book and the full library FREE for 7 days

Get unlimited access to 7000+ expert-authored eBooks and videos courses covering every tech area you can think of

Start free trial

Renews at $15.99/month. Cancel anytime

Author (1)

Emily Carr

Emily Carr has been working as a Change Management consultant for over a decade. As a consultant, she has worked with Fortune 500 companies to develop and execute successful Change Management, communications, and training programs for large-scale business and IT projects. These programs have had global reach across the United States, Australia, India, Eastern Europe, and the Middle East. Emily is also the author of the popular Change Management blog, Practical Change Management.
Read more about Emily Carr

See other products by Emily Carr

Personalised recommendations for you

Based on your interests and search pattern

Engineering Manager's Handbook

Engineering Manager's Handbook is a comprehensive guide for managers to excel in their role, foster customer-centric digital products, learn leadership, team building, and balancing technical work with management. You’ll also explore how to develop trust, authority, and collaboration to drive success and make a lasting impact.

BookSep 2023278 pages

C++ Game Animation Programming

Video game characters have a fascinating history, evolving from simple 2D sprites to high-polygon 3D models. Take a look behind the curtain and learn how to build a 3D renderer, load character models, play animations and blend between them, and create large crowds of animated people with this comprehensive C++ game animation programming guide.

BookDec 2023480 pages

Gamification for Product Excellence

This book helps you to take your product management strategy to the next level by standing out in crowded markets. Along with boosting user adoption rates by creating engaging products that incorporate playful elements, learn gamification theory and how to integrate it into your design, product development, and product management processes.

BookSep 2023350 pages

Supercharging Productivity with Trello

Supercharging Productivity with Trello is the ultimate guide for anyone looking to boost their productivity with digital tools. Whether you're new to Trello or a seasoned professional, this book covers everything from core features to advanced automation, and Power-Ups.

BookAug 2023342 pages

Automate It with Zapier and Generative AI

This comprehensive guide takes you through the concepts of business process automation, showing you how Zapier can facilitate it without having to write code and helping you to boost productivity. You’ll learn how to save time, reduce costs, and make your business recession-proof by using Zapier to automate tasks in your cloud-based business apps.

BookAug 2023706 pages

Scoring to Picture in Logic Pro

In this book, you’ll explore a variety of techniques to synchronize music to picture using Logic Pro. Though this is not a technical manual, it will teach you how to make the best use of Logic Pro and how to wield this technology to maximize your potential when scoring to picture.

BookSep 2023412 pages

Mastering Information Security Compliance Management

This concise book equips you with the knowledge and practices needed to establish and maintain an effective information security management system. The chapters provide insights into ISO/IEC 27001/27002:2022, risk management, ISMS development, incident management, audit processes, and strategies for continuous improvement.

BookAug 2023236 pages1

Implementing Atlassian Confluence

Implementing Atlassian Confluence provides both a high-level overview and an insightful path for remote collaboration with Atlassian Confluence. With this multi-layered yet practical guide, you’ll be able to set up Confluence-based collaboration with minimum external consultancy services to ensure smooth and close coordination between teams.

BookSep 2023406 pages

R Bioinformatics Cookbook

This book takes a unique problem–solution approach to handling complex tasks in the bioinformatics domain using different datasets present in the book. With the help of real-world examples, you’ll learn to put each independent recipe to use to tackle problems in the field of bioinformatics.

BookOct 2023396 pages

Build Your Own Metaverse with Unity

Build Your own Metaverse with Unity is a practical guide for developers to create their own metaverse - a virtual world with infinite possibilities. It empowers you to identify gaps in existing metaverses and improve upon them, enabling you to shape your virtual world.

BookSep 2023586 pages5

GO TO TOP

Machine LearningKubernetesReactPythonCybersecurityUnity Game DevelopmentPower BIAzureWeb Development

• Machine Learning
• Kubernetes
• React
• Python
• Cybersecurity
• Unity Game Development
• Power BI
• Azure
• Web Development

Legal

Terms and ConditionsPrivacy PolicyCookie PolicyShipping PolicyReturn Policy

Support

HelpContact Us

Business

Partnerships

Sponsored eBooks

Custom eBooks

CareersBecome an author

Packt+ Membership

SubscriptionDataProSecPro

Packt Subscription Packt NewsLetter

Legal

Terms and Conditions

Privacy Policy

Cookie Policy

Shipping Policy

Return Policy

Support

Help

Contact Us

Business

Packt Subscription

Packt NewsLetter

---

Company Address: Packt Publishing Ltd, Grosvenor House, 11 St Paul's Square, Birmingham, B3 1RB© 2024 Packt Publishing Limited All Rights Reserved

When this happens…	Do this…
You need to know who your stakeholders are at both group and individual levels	Conduct a stakeholder analysis to identify the level of influence and support for the change for each stakeholder.
Different groups and individuals will move along the change curve at different rates	Don't panic! Map the current versus the desired change state for various stakeholders, remembering that not everyone needs to be at the same stage at the same time.
Performance will dip both before and after the change is implemented	Take a deep breath and remind yourself (and your leadership team) that this is a normal...