Project Management For Dummies. Stanley E. Portny

on these two types of power.) In either case, the more power a person has, the better able they are to marshal people and resources to support your project. Typically, drivers and supporters have higher levels of power over your project than observers do.

      On the other hand, a person’s interest in something is how much they care or are curious about it or how much they pay attention to it. The more interested a person is in your project, the more likely they are to want to use their power to help the project succeed.

      You can define a stakeholder’s relative levels of power and interest related to your project as being either high or low. You then have four possible combinations for each stakeholder’s relative levels of power and interest. The particular values of a stakeholder’s power and interest ratings suggest the chances that the stakeholder may have a significant impact on your project and, therefore, the relative importance of keeping that stakeholder interested and involved in your project.

Most often, you base the assessments of a stakeholder’s power over and interest in your project on the aggregated individual, subjective opinions of several parties: you, your team members, your project’s other stakeholders, people who have worked with the stakeholder on other projects, subject matter experts, and/or the stakeholder. If you assign a value of 1 to each individual rating of high and 0 to each individual rating of low, you’d rate a stakeholder’s power or interest as high if the average of the individual assessments were 0.5 or greater and low if the average were below 0.5.

Figure 4-3 depicts a Power-Interest Grid, which represents these four possible power-interest combinations as distinct quadrants on a two-dimensional graph. As the project manager, you should spend a minimal amount of time and effort with stakeholders who have low levels of both power and interest (Quadrant I). Spend increasingly greater amounts of time and effort with stakeholders who have a low level of power and a high level of interest (Quadrant II) and a low level of interest and a high level of power (Quadrant III), respectively. You should spend the most time and effort keeping stakeholders with high degrees of both power and interest (Quadrant IV) informed and involved (check out Chapter 15 for different ways to communicate with your project’s stakeholders).

      © John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

FIGURE 4-3: Involving stakeholders with different levels of power and interest in your project.

Relating This Chapter to the PMP Exam and PMBOK 7

Table 4-4 notes topics in this chapter that may be addressed on the Project Management Professional (PMP) certification exam and that are also included in A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge, 7th Edition (PMBOK 7).

TABLE 4-4 Chapter 4 Topics in Relation to the PMP Exam and PMBOK 7

Topic	Location in This Chapter	Location in PMBOK 7	Comments
Definition of project stakeholder	“Understanding Your Project’s Stakeholders”	2.1. Stakeholder Performance Domain	Project drivers and supporters referred to in this book together are the same as the project stakeholders mentioned in PMBOK 7. PMBOK 7 addresses stakeholders only (and ignores the category of observers mentioned in this book) when discussing people or organizations to consider involving in your project.
Developing a stakeholder register	“Developing a Stakeholder Register”	4.6.2. Logs and Registers	PMBOK 7 defines the stakeholder register but does not explain how to develop one.
Examples of project stakeholders	“Developing a Stakeholder Register”	2.1. Stakeholder Performance Domain	The examples of stakeholders in PMBOK 7 are similar to the examples of drivers and supporters mentioned in this book.
Classifying stakeholders as drivers, supporters, or observers	“Determining Whether Stakeholders Are Drivers, Supporters, or Observers”	2.1.1.2. Understand and Analyze	PMBOK 7 considers drivers and supporters (although it doesn’t refer to them by those names) only when discussing people who may affect your project.
Keeping stakeholders involved	“Determining Whether Stakeholders Are Drivers, Supporters, or Observers”	2.1.1. Stakeholder Engagement 4.6.3. Plans	The two discussions of how and when to involve stakeholders address similar approaches and alternatives.
Conducting a stakeholder analysis	“Assessing Your Stakeholders’ Power and Interest”	2.1. Stakeholder Performance Domain 4.4.1. Data Gathering and Analysis	The two discussions of why and how to conduct a stakeholder analysis address similar points.