Stakeholder management and communication plans
This guide sets out how to create stakeholder management and communications plans a
that help you manage interactions with your important stakeholders.
Stakeholders include anyone with a vested interest in your project, including those who can
influence the project’s budget and future. Keeping the right people in the loop at the right
stages of your project, with the right amount of detail is critical to making stakeholders feel
valued, involved and heard.
In addition, your key stakeholders with the most weight and influence can help you gain
resources, prioritise competing demands or timelines and clear potential barriers. Keeping
them up to date positive about the project and its progress is critical.
Once you’ve identified your stakeholders and analysed their level of interest and
involvement, the next step is to weigh their respective needs and influence and to assess
and plan how to involve and manage them. Every stakeholder needs management and
communication, ranging from occasional updates and information sharing to detailed,
frequent discussions and negotiations.
What are Stakeholder management and communication plans?
After you identify your key stakeholders, it is important to capture how best to manage them
and communicate with them: this can be one single plan or two separate plans.
A stakeholder management plan can be a simple grid or spreadsheet that lists the
stakeholders along one axis and their points of interest and influence along the other. In the
individual boxes, note key milestones or deliverables that a stakeholder might have special
interest in, as well as financial and emotional needs tied to the project. An example of a
stakeholder management plan is below at Figure 1.
A stakeholder communication plan sets out when and how you will communicate with each
stakeholder identified in the stakeholder management plan. The stakeholder communication
plan builds on and is developed on the basis of the stakeholder management plan. An
example of a stakeholder communication plan is below at Figure 2.
Professional Services
Capability Framework:
Communicating and
Engaging
