13.1 Identify Stakeholders
Find everyone with a stake in the project and write down what they care about.
Initiating / Stakeholder · ← PMBOK reference · See it on the map
Why it matters
A stakeholder nobody identified cannot be planned for, and they tend to surface later as unexpected resistance to a decision already made.
What done looks like
Stakeholders are identified and logged with their interest and level of influence.
First time tip
Ask each stakeholder you find who else you should be talking to. The list almost always grows past the names you started with.
What you need (Inputs)
- Project Charter
- Business Case
- Benefits Management Plan
- Agreements
- Enterprise Environmental Factors
- Organizational Process Assets
How you do it (Tools & Techniques)
What you get (Outputs)
Worked example
The obvious names are the director and the board. Asking each of them who else cares is what adds the teen-program volunteer, an accessibility advocate, and the tenant next door whose wall the scaffold has to lean against.
Common pitfalls
- Listing only the people who hold budget and missing the ones who can block the work.
- Recording a name with no note of what that person actually cares about.
- Treating the register as finished, when new stakeholders appear as the work does.
How driftless helps
- Stakeholder Analysis can be run here.
- Meetings can be run here.
- Stakeholder Register can be created in the wizard.