Abbott Project Management Playbook

Another important reference for project management studies describes important process that should be performed when managing stakeholders. Rita Mulcahy’s diagram presents the critical activities not to be overlooked for stakeholder management. For the stakeholder management, see the picture below.

The idea of this section in the Abbott PM Playbook is to briefly transcribe the highlights and important concepts and techniques to perform an appropriate stakeholder management. The process of identifying and engaging stakeholders for the benefit of the project is iterative. The four processes should be reviewed and updated routinely; but most importantly when the project moves through different phases in its life cycle, stakeholders change (either current ones are no longer involved in the work of the project or new stakeholders join the team), or when there are significant changes in the business needs, organization, or the wider stakeholder community. Each project has its own specificities and Abbott’s internal environment depending on the type/area/size of the project. As a result, not all PMBOKmethodologies are not applicable to Abbott projects. Considering this, it is also important to identify the stakeholder diversity of the project (how diverse is the culture within the stakeholder community). Also, it is important to identify the complexity of stakeholder relationships considering the network involved and the technology used for project communication (tools available and effectiveness, how transparent is the relationship between the stakeholders, etc.). Another current need is to perform projects as agile as possible. To facilitate in a timely manner, it is important to manage the project guiding productive discussion and decision making, where teams can "walk with their own legs" rather than going through layers of management to go ahead with the project. Furthermore, as previously stated, regular interactions with the stakeholders throughout the project helps mitigate potential risk, builds trust, and supports changes, increasing the likelihood of success for the project. 2.3 P OWER /I NTEREST G RID First, when identifying the stakeholders, it is important to generate a stakeholder register, where information about them will be maintained. This information is important for future evaluations to confirm that the behavior of each stakeholder is following as expected. For a successful stakeholder management, it is not only important the identification of the stakeholders, but also determine their requisites, expectations, interests, level of influence, and, subsequently, plan how they will be managed, communicated, and have their engagement managed. Every kind of interaction with them will confirm they understand what the project is about.

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