Identifying  project Stakeholders  - IPDET

Phases and Methods of Project Management

Understand and document your requirements.

 

 

An important part of the front-end analysis is identifying the stakeholders of the project, program, or policy.

 

Stakeholders

Stakeholders are all those people or representatives of organizations that have a “stake” in the intervention. Typically, they are those who are affected by an intervention either during its lifetime or in subsequent years. It is important to include those who would typically not be asked to participate in evaluation.

Stakeholders can include:

                •

Participants: those people who participate or have participated in the intervention

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Direct Beneficiaries: those people who directly and currently benefit

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Indirect Beneficiaries: those people who are not recipients of the intervention but who benefit from others who are beneficiaries. For example, employers benefit from educational programs since they are able to hire better-trained people

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Others Impacted: those people who did not participate in the program but who were impacted by it in some way, either directly or indirectly

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Donors

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Government officials, elected officials, government employees with a relevant interest, such as planners, public health nurses, etc.

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Program directors, staff, board members, managers, and volunteers

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Policy-makers

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Community and interest groups or associations, including those that might have a different agenda from the program officials.

 

Table 3.1, adapted from Fitzpatrick, Sanders, and Worthen,3 gives a checklist to assist determining roles for the evaluation audience.

Front-end Analysis of the Evaluation: Why When and What

Table 3.1: Checklist of Stakeholder Roles

Individuals, groups, or agencies	To make policy	To make operational decisions	To provide input to evaluation	To react	For interest only
Developer of the program
Funder of the program
Person/agency who identified the local need
Boards/agencies who approved deliver of the program at local level
Local funder
Other providers of resources (facilities, supplies, in-kind contributions)
Top managers of agencies delivering the program
Program managers
Program directors
Sponsor of the evaluation
Direct clients of the program
Indirect beneficiaries of the program (parents, children, spouses, employers)
Potential adopters of the program
Groups excluded from the program
Groups perceiving negative side effects of the program or the evaluation
Groups losing power as a result of use of the program
Groups suffering from lost opportunities as a result of the program
Public/community members
Others

 

International Program for Development Evaluation Training − 2007 Page 123 Module 3

Involving Stakeholders

The first challenge will be to identify the stakeholders. This can be done by looking at documents about the intervention and talking with program staff, local officials, and program participants. Stakeholders can be interviewed initially, or brought together in small groups.

Stakeholder meetings can be held periodically, or a more formal structure can be established. The evaluation manager may set up an advisory or steering committee structure. Tasks can be assigned to individuals or to smaller sub-committees if necessary.

Often there is one key client sponsoring or requesting the evaluation. The needs of this client will largely shape the evaluation. The evaluator, who listens and facilitates discussions about the evaluation’s focus, can summarize, prepare written notes, and provide key stakeholders with options about ways the evaluation can be approached.

By engaging the stakeholders early on, everyone will have a better understanding of the intervention and the challenges it faces in implementation. In addition, the evaluation team will be better informed as to key issues for the evaluation and about what information is needed, when, and by whom. Meeting with key stakeholders helps ensure that the evaluation will not miss major critical issues. It also helps get a “buy in” on the evaluation as stakeholders perceive the evaluation as potentially helpful in attempting to answer their questions.

The extent to which stakeholders are actively involved in the design and implementation of the evaluation depends on several factors. For example, stakeholders may not be able to afford to take time away from their regular duties, or there may be political reasons why the evaluation needs to be seen as independent.

While it may be somewhat unwieldy, involvement of stakeholders in this first step is likely to:

                •

generate better questions

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generate support for the evaluation

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increase access to whatever information is available

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enhance the acceptance of the final report and recommendations.

 

Page 124 International Program for Development Evaluation Training − 2007 Front-end Analysis of the Evaluation: Why When and What International Program for Development Evaluation Training − 2007 Page 125

4 A joint effort of Management Sciences for Health (MSH) and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), “Quality guide: Stakeholder analysis” in the Guide to managing for quality. http://bsstudents.uce.ac.uk/sdrive/Martin%20Beaver/Week%202/Quality%20Guide%20-%20Stakeholder%20Analysis.htm

Stakeholder Analysis

In their website “A Guide to Managing for Quality,” the Management Sciences for Health (MSH) and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF)4 give clear information about stakeholder analysis.

They define stakeholder analysis as a technique to identify and assess the importance of key people, groups of people, or institutions that may significantly influence the success of your activity or project. They also suggest the following reasons for doing a stakeholder analysis:

                •

identify people, groups, and institutions that will influence your initiative (either positively or negatively)

•

anticipate the kind of influence, positive or negative, these groups will have on your initiative

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develop strategies to get the most effective support possible for your initiative and reduce any obstacles to successful implementation of your program.

Module 3

How to Do a Stakeholder Analysis

Use the following procedure to do a stakeholder analysis:

Step	Procedure
1	Make a matrix with four columns with the following headings for each column: • Stakeholder • Stakeholder Interest(s) in the Project • Assessment of Impact • Potential Strategies for Obtaining Support or Reducing Obstacles
2.	Brainstorm to identify all the people, groups, and institutions that will affect or be affected by the intervention.
3.	List the people, groups, and institutions in the “Stakeholder” column.
4.	Once you have a list of all potential stakeholders, review the list, and identify the specific interests these stakeholders have in the intervention. Consider issues like: • the intervention’s benefit(s) to the stakeholder • the changes that the intervention might require the stakeholder to make • the project activities that might cause damage or conflict for the stakeholder. Record these under the column "Stakeholder Interest(s) in the Project."
5.	Again, review each stakeholder listed. This time, ask the question: How important are the stakeholder's interests to the success of the intervention? As you ask the question, consider: • the role the key stakeholder must play for the intervention to be successful, and the likelihood that the stakeholder will play this role • the likelihood and impact of a stakeholder's negative response to the intervention Record your assessment under the column "Assessment of Impact" for each stakeholder. Assign a(n): - “A” for extremely important - “B” for fairly important - “C” for not very important
6.	Finally, consider the kinds of things that you could do to get stakeholder support and reduce opposition. Consider how you might approach each of the stakeholders. • What kind of information will they need? • How important is it to involve the stakeholder in the planning process? • Are there other groups or individuals that might influence the stakeholder to support your initiative? • Record your strategies for obtaining support or reducing obstacles to your project in the last column in the matrix.

 

Page 126 International Program for Development Evaluation Training − 2007 Front-end Analysis of the Evaluation: Why When and What International Program for Development Evaluation Training − 2007 Page 127

5 B. Mikkelsen (2005). Methods for development work and research: A new guide for practitioners. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2005. pp. 283-285.

Table 3.2 shows an example of a stakeholder analysis matrix before entering analysis information.

Table 3.2: Example of Stakeholder Analysis.

Stakeholder

Stakeholder Interest(s) in the Project

Assessment of Impact

Potential Strategies for Obtaining Support or Reducing Obstacles

 

You may be asked to work on an evaluation that did not use a participatory approach but you want to involve the stakeholders in the evaluation. Mikkelsen5 discusses the difficulty of this situation. For these situations, the evaluator needs to ensure that stakeholders are involved in:

                •

formulating terms of reference

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selecting the evaluation team

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analyzing data

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formulating conclusions and recommendations.

 

Normally, a stakeholder analysis will show that the stakeholders are diverse. Stakeholders may have different interests and in some cases, their interests may be contradictory. The evaluator will need to bring the different opinions into the open. As an evaluator, you may need to find a balance between naïve consensus thinking and an ability to handle conflict resolution.