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Stakeholder Review

Unlike in football, a project’s kickoff is also a handoff. The government project officer will usually have already performed the initial stakeholder analysis and coordination and a requirements analysis as a part of securing the project’s funding and developing the solicitation. The kickoff meeting provides an opportunity for the results of those important efforts to be passed onto the contractor team.

The government program manager in most cases will remain central to—if not totally responsible for—the stakeholders’ involvement in the project. Nonetheless, the better the contractor project manager understands the stakeholders’ requirements, constraints, and project involvement, the better he or she can integrate those factors into the project’s planning and operations. That information will also help the project manager’s interactions with the stakeholders be more productive. Further, the discussion of the stakeholders’ requirements and perspectives early in the kickoff meeting will be useful to the subsequent discussion of the project’s objectives and standards of success.

It will therefore be useful for the government project officer to describe at least three things with respect to the stakeholders:

• How will the stakeholders be involved in the project’s operations and how will that involvement be managed?
• Who are the stakeholders and what are each stakeholder’s project requirements, perspectives, and role?
• What possible changes might occur during the project regarding the stakeholders’ project requirements, priorities, involvement or representation?

Stakeholder Procedures

The project’s interaction with its stakeholders will largely depend on the stakeholders’ roles. They may just act as “silent partners” in the enterprise and just need to be kept generally informed about the project’s operations and status. On the other hand, they may compose a senior advisory group that reviews the project’s plans and major products and/or participates in project in-progress reviews (IPRs).

In both these cases, the project’s interaction with the stakeholders usually occurs largely if not totally through the government project officer. However, some routine communication between stakeholders and the project staff members might also be necessary. For example, a stakeholder’s representative might be responsible for coordinating some project activities that will occur within his or her organization.

The details on how any such interaction shall occur (e.g., who should be copied on correspondence and e-mails, how that communication will be meshed with other parts of the project’s communication plan) should be presented or developed at the kickoff meeting.

Stakeholder Information

The project’s stakeholders should next be described or (if present) introduced to the rest of the project team, touching on issues such as the following for each stakeholder:

• The individual(s) who will represent the stakeholder organization on the project.
• The stakeholder’s requirements that will be met by the project
• The resources and support the stakeholder will provide to the project
• The possible changes in the stakeholder’s requirements, role, or involvement that might occur during the project, based on upcoming policy changes, reorganizations, leadership changes, etc.

Possible Changes

The stakeholder review should also consider any new stakeholders who either cannot be identified yet or who may possibly become involved during the project's period of performance. For example, if the project includes a system field test late in its schedule, the organization that will host that test may not be known yet. In cases like that there is always a chance that once the new stakeholder has been identified and becomes engaged with the project, they will bring new schedule or support requirements to the project. Since this possibility brings an element of project risk, a milestone should be estimated and entered into the project schedule for when that stakeholder will be identified. That open item, like all TBDs, should be considered for possible inclusion in the project’s risk management process.

The discussion should also touch upon any impending or possible changes that might occur to any stakeholder’s mission, organization, policies, infrastructure, or budget that could possibly affect their project role or requirements. If any such change is likely, it should also be considered for inclusion in the project’s risk management.